“When once, as Fame reports, the Queen of LoveIn Ida’s valley raised a Myrtle grove,Young wanton Cupids danced a summer’s nightRound the sweet place by Cynthia’s silver light.Venus this charming green alone prefers,And this of all the verdant kind is hers:Hence the bride’s brow with Myrtle wreaths is graced,When the long-wished-for night is come at last;And Juno (queen of nuptial mysteries)Makes all her torches of these fragrant trees.Hence in Elysian fields are Myrtles saidTo favour lovers with their friendly shade,There Phædra, Procris (ancient poets feign),And Eriphyle still of love complain,Whose unextinguished flames e’en after death remain.Nor is this all the honour Myrtles claim:When from the Sabine war Tudertus came,He wreathed his temples from the Myrtle grove,Sacred to Triumph as before to Love.”To dream of seeing a fine Myrtle portends many lovers and a legacy. If a married person dreams of Myrtle, it prognosticates a second marriage. A similar dream for the second time portends a second marriage to a person who has also been married before. Myrtle seen in a dream denotes, as a rule, a numerous family, wealth, and old age.NARCISSUS.—The white, or Poet’s, Narcissus owes its origin to a beautiful youth of Bœotia, of whom it had been foretold he should live happily until he beheld his own face. Caressed and petted by the Nymphs, and passionately loved by the unhappy Echo, he slighted and rejected their advances; but one day, when heated by the chase, he stopped to quench his thirst in a stream, and in so doing beheld the reflection of his own lovely features. Enamoured instantly of his own beauty, he became spell-bound to the spot, where he pined to death. Ovid relates how the flower known by his name sprang from the corpse of Narcissus:—“As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run,And trickle into drops before the sun,So melts the youth, and languishes away;His beauty withers, and his limbs decay;And none of those attractive charms remain,To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.She saw him in his present misery,Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see;She answered sadly to the lover’s moan,Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan.‘Ah, youth belov’d in vain!’ Narcissus cries;‘Ah, youth beloved in vain!’ the Nymph replies.‘Farewell!’ says he;—the parting sound scarce fellFrom his faint lips but she replied, ‘Farewell!’Then on th’ unwholesome earth he gasping lies,Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,And in the Stygian waves itself admires.For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn.And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn;When, looking for his corpse, they only foundA rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown’d.”—Addison.The cup in the centre of the flower is fabled to contain the tears of Narcissus. Virgil alludes to this (Georgic IV.) when, in speaking of the occupations of bees, he says: “Some place within the house the tears of Narcissus.” Milton also refers to this fancy in thefollowing lines, when introducing the Narcissus under its old English name of Daffodil:—“Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,And Daffodillies fill their cups with tears,To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies.”The Daffodil is supposed to be one of the flowers which Proserpine was gathering when she was seized and carried off by Pluto (Dis). The Earth, at the instigation of Jupiter, had brought forth the lovely blossom for a lure to the unsuspecting maid. An old Greek hymn contains the tale:—“In Sicilia’s ever-blooming shade,When playful Proserpine from Ceres strayed,Led with unwary step, the virgin trainO’er Ætna’s steeps and Enna’s flow’ry plainPluck’d with fair hand the silver-blossom’d bower,And purpled mead,—herself a fairer flower;Sudden, unseen, amidst the twilight glade,Rushed gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid.”Shakspeare, in ‘A Winter’s Tale,’ alludes to the same story:—“O Proserpina,For the flowers now that, frightened, thou let’st fall,From Dis’s waggon! DaffodilsThat come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty.”Other accounts of a similar legend, slightly varied, state that it was at the instigation of Venus that Pluto employed the Narcissus to entice Proserpine to the lower world.——Ancient writers referred to the Narcissus as the flower of deceit, on account of its narcotic properties; for although, as Homer assures us, it delights heaven and earth by its odour and beauty, yet, at the same time, it produces stupor, madness, and even death.——It was consecrated both to Ceres and Proserpine, on which account Sophocles poetically alludes to it as the garland of the great goddesses. “And ever, day by day, the Narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, the ancient coronet of the ‘mighty goddesses,’ bursts into bloom by heaven’s dew” (Œdipus Coloneus).——The Fates wore wreaths of the Narcissus, and the Greeks twined the white stars of the odorous blossoms among the tangled locks of the Eumenides. A crown composed of these flowers was wont to be woven in honour of the infernal gods, and placed upon the heads of the dead.——The Narcissus is essentially the flower of Lent; but when mixed with the Yew, which is symbolical of the Resurrection, it becomes a suitable decoration for Easter:—“See that there be stores of Lilies,Called by shepherds Daffodillies.”—Drayton.Herrick, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, all sing the praises of the Narcissus, or Lent Lily, the Daffodil and Daffadowndily of our forefathers,—names which they formed from the still older one of Affodilly, a corruption ofAsphodelus.NASTURTIUM.—According to Rapin, the Nasturtium was once a young Trojan huntsman; but the Jesuit poet gives no details of the metamorphosis, merely stating that“Shield-like Nasturtium, too, confusedly spread,With intermingling Trefoil fills each bed—Once graceful youths; this last a Grecian swain,The first an huntsman on the Trojan plain.”Theshield-like form of the Nasturtium’s leaves and its curiously-shaped flowers, which resemble golden helmets, have obtained for the plant the Latin name of “Tropæolum” (trophy). Its old English names were Yellow Lark’s-heels and Indian Cress.——The seed of the Nasturtium, according to Macer Floridus, possess a great power to repel serpents.——Linnæus has recorded that his daughter Elizabeth Christina observed the flowers of the Nasturtium emit spontaneously, at certain intervals, sparks like electric ones, visible only in the evening.NEEM.—The Neem-tree (Azardirachta Indica) is considered by the Indians a sacred tree, and is described by their poets as the type of everything bitter. Its bark is used as a substitute for Cinchona in cases of fevers.NELUMBO.—The Nelumbo, Sacred Lotus, or Padma (Nelumbium speciosum), was the Sacred Bean of Egypt, the Rose Lily of the Nile spoken of by Herodotus. The beauty of its blossoms, which are sometimes of a brilliant red colour, but rarely white, hanging over broad peltated leaves considerably above the surface of the water, render this the most lovely and graceful of all the Water Lilies; and at the same time it is the most interesting on account of its remote historical associations. Four thousand years ago the Nelumbo was the emblem of sanctity in Egypt amongst the priests of a religion long since defunct; and the plant itself has long been extinct in that country, though in India and China the flowers are held especially sacred, and the plant is commonly cultivated. The Chinese call this sacred flower theLien-wha, and prize it above all others. Celebrated for its beauty by their poets, and ranked for its virtues among the plants which, according to Chinese theology, enter into the beverage of immortality, thisLien-whais to the Chinese what the Gul or Rose is to the Persians; and a moonlight excursion on a tranquil river covered with its yellow blossoms is numbered by the inhabitants of the Flowery Land among the supreme delights of mortal existence. (See alsoLotusandNymphæa).NETTLE.—The Nettle is one of the five plants which are stated by the Mishna to be the “bitter herbs” ordered to be partaken of by the Jews at the Feast of the Passover.——In Ireland, the Nettle of Timor is known asDaoun Setan, or the Devil’s Apron; and in the southern parts of the island it is a common practice for schoolboys, once a year, to consider themselves privileged to runwildly about with a bunch of Nettles, striking at the face and hands of their companions or of such other persons as they fancy they may venture to assault with impunity.——The Roman Nettle (Urtica pilulifera) is the most venomous of British Nettles, and is found abundantly about Romney, in Kent, where, according to Camden, the Roman soldiers brought the seed with them, and sowed it for their own use, to rub and chafe their limbs when, through extreme cold, they should be stiff and benumbed; having been told before they came from home that the climate of England was so cold that it was not to be endured without having recourse to some friction to warm their blood and to stir up natural heat.——Among the various remedies once prescribed for the “trembling fever,” or ague, by Catherine Oswald, a noted herbalist, was one which related to plucking up a Nettle by the root three successive mornings before sunrise. In bygone times, Nettle and Milfoil carried about the person used to be believed to drive away fear, and to be a certain charm against malignant spirits.——The Scotch say that to cure the sting of a Nettle, the person stung must rub the leaves of a Dock over the part affected, repeating at the same time: “Nettle in, Dock out; Dock rub Nettle out.” This charm was known to Chaucer, who uses it as a common saying, implying lovers’ inconstancy, in ‘Troilus and Cresside’:—“But canst thou playen racket to and fro,Nettle in, Dock out, now this, now that, Pandure?”In German mythology, the Nettle was consecrated to the god Thor.——In the Tyrol, during thunderstorms, the mountaineers throw Nettles on the fire to avert danger, and more especially to guard themselves from lightning; this custom also prevails in some parts of Italy.——In Germany, there exists a superstition that Nettles gathered before sunrise will drive away evil spirits from cattle.——The god Thor was, among the ancient Germans, regarded as the guardian deity of marriage; hence it is, perhaps, that in Germany Nettle-seed is believed to excite the passions and to facilitate births.——In dream lore, to fancy you are stung by Nettles indicates vexation and disappointment; to dream of gathering Nettles denotes that someone has formed a favourable opinion of you; and if the dreamer be married, then that the domestic circle will be blessed with concord and harmony.——Astrologers place Nettles under the dominion of Mars.NIGHTSHADE.—The Deadly Nightshade (Atropa Belladonna), or Death’s Herb, is a plant of ill omen, and one of which witches are reported to be fond: it is so poisonous in its nature, that Gerarde says: “If you will follow my counsell, deale not with the same in any case, and banish it from your gardens, and the use of it also, being a plant so furious and deadly; for it bringeth such as have eaten thereof into a dead sleepe, wherein many have died.” Buchanan relates that the Scots, under Macbeth, beingdesirous of poisoning the Danes, treacherously took the opportunity, during a period of truce, to mix the poisonous Nightshade with the beer with which they had agreed to supply them. Thus stupefied, Sweno’s army slept soundly, and the Scots, falling upon their enemies, destroyed them in their helplessness.——According to Gassendi, a shepherd in Provence produced visions and prophesied, through the use of Deadly Nightshade.——The Nightshade (Solanum Dulcamara) has poisonous red berries; but the root and leaves have been applied to several medicinal uses.——The Vale of Furness, Lancashire, is still known by the name of Valley of Nightshade, on account of the plant being exceedingly plentiful there. Sprigs of Nightshade appeared on the ancient seals of the Abbey.NIMBU.—The Nimbu (Melia Azedarach) is a native of the warm parts of Asia, and bears a variety of names in different countries, such as the Holy Tree, Pride of India, Bead Tree (in allusion to the seeds being strung for chaplets),Persian Lilac, and Hill Margosa. Bishop Heber saw it in India, and states that the natives have a profound reverence for the tree, which they believe has the power to ward off witchcraft and the Evil Eye.NIPA PALM.—The Nipa, or Susa (Nipa fruticans), is the sacred tree of Borneo, and is the most valuable of all growing things to the Dyaks of that country. The seeds, it is recorded, lie dormant in the fruit several years before germination, when the fruit becomes detached from the plant and is floated off by the tide to establish itself on some other mudbank. This plant only grows where fever and Mangroves flourish.None-so-Pretty, orNancy-Pretty.—SeeLondon Pride.Nosebleed.—SeeYarrow.NUTMEGS.—In the Middle Ages, a curious belief existed that Nutmegs, Cloves, Cinnamon, and Ginger all grew on the same tree.——The strength of the Nutmeg in the season is said so to overcome the birds of Paradise, that they fall helplessly intoxicated.——To dream of Nutmegs is stated to be a sign of many impending changes.NUTS.—When the Scandinavian god Loki, transformed into a falcon, rescued Idhunn, the goddess of youthful life, from the power of the Frost-giants, it was in the shape of a Hazel-nut that he carried her off in his beak.——The Hazel was sacred to Thor, and was in olden times regarded as an actual embodiment of lightning: hence it possessed great virtue as a promoter of fruitfulness, and Hazel-nuts became a favourite medium in divinations relating to love and marriage.——In old Rome, Nuts were scattered at marriages, as they are now in Italy and in Altmark.——In Westphalia and other parts of Germany, a few Nuts are mixed with the seed-corn to act as a charm in making it prolific.——In Hertfordshireand other parts of England, as well as in Germany, a certain relation is believed to exist between the produce of the Hazel-bushes and the increase of the population; a good Nut year always bringing an abundance of babies. In Westphalia, the proverb runs, “Plenty of Nuts, plenty of babies.”——Brand says it is a custom in Iceland, when a maiden would know if her lover is faithful, to put three Nuts upon the bar of a grate, naming them after her lover and herself. If a Nut crack or jump, the lover will prove faithless; if it begin to blaze or burn, it is a sign of the fervour of his affection. If the Nuts named after the girl and her swain burn together, they will be married. This divination is still practised in Scotland on Hallowe’en, whose mysterious rites Burns has immortalised in his poem, containing these lines:—“Some merry friendly countree folksTogether did conveneTo burn their Nits and pu’ their stocks,And haud their Hallowe’en,Fu’ blithe that night.”A similar custom has for years existed in Ireland; and Gray, long before Burns, had evidenced that the superstitions of Hallowe’en or Nutcrack Night (October 31st) were known and practised in England, as thus—“Two Hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,And to each Nut I gave a sweetheart’s name.This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,That with a flame of brightest colour blazed.As blazed the Nut, so may thy passion grow;For ’twasthyNut that did so brightly glow.”In Bohemia, on Christmas Eve, girls fix coloured wax lights in the shells of the first parcel of Nuts they have opened that day, light them all at the same time, and set them floating in the water, after mentally giving to each the name of a wooer. He whose lighted bark first approaches the girl will be her future husband. If an unwelcome suitor seems likely to be first in, the girl endeavours to retard the shell by blowing against it, and by this means the favourite’s bark usually wins. Should, however, one of the lights be perchance blown out, it is accounted a portent of death.——The instrument used by the nutter in robbing the Hazel of its fruit seems to have been formerly regarded as opprobrious, and as suggestive of a thief: thus, in the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ Nym says: “If you run the Nut-hook’s humour on me,” or, in other words, “If you call me a thief.” Again, in ‘Henry IV.,’ Part II., Doll Tearsheet cries out to the beadle: “Nut-hook, Nut-hook, you lie!”——In Sussex, there is a proverb current: “As black as the De’il’s nutting bag;” and it is held to be dangerous to go out nutting on Sunday, for fear of meeting the Evil One, who haunts the Nut-bushes, and sometimes appears to nutters in friendly guise, and holds down the branches for them to strip.——In bygone times, it was believed that a spirit of a weird and sinister character inhabiteda Nut-grove.——There is a superstition that the ashes of the shells of Hazel-nuts have merely to be applied to the back of a child’s head to ensure the colour of the iris in the infant’s eyes turning from grey to black.——In Germany, Nuts are placed in tombs, as being emblematic of regeneration and immortality. Searchers in the old tombs of Wurtemburg sometimes found Pumpkins and Walnuts, but always a number of Nuts.——In some countries, Hazel-nuts are supposed to be endowed with the power of discovering or attracting wealth. Thus, in Russia, there is a belief that anyone carrying a Nut in his house will make money; and on this account many of the Russian peasantry invariably carry a double Nut in their purses. In fairy tales, we often find good fairies using Nuts as their carriages: as, in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Mercutio speaks of Queen Mab arriving in a Nut-shell.——There is a legend that St. Agatha every year crosses the sea from Catania to Gallipoli on a Nut-shell, which she employs as a boat.——Authorities on the subject say that to dream that you see Nut-trees, and that you crack and eat their fruit, signifies riches and content gained with toil and pain. Clusters of Nuts imply happiness and success: to dream of gathering Nuts is a bad omen; and to dream of finding Nuts that have been hid signifies the discovery of treasure.NYMPHÆA.—TheNymphæa cœruleais the Lily of the Nile, the Lotus of ancient Egypt; but not the Sacred Bean, which was theNelumbium speciosum. (SeeLotusandNelumbo).——According to German tradition, the Undines often conceal themselves from mortal gaze under the form of Nymphæas.——This beautiful Water-lily was deemed by the Frisians to have a magical power. Dr. Halbertsma has stated that, when a boy, he remembers people were extremely careful in plucking and handling them; for if anyone fell with such a flower in his possession, he became immediately subject to fits.——The Wallachians have a superstition that every flower has a soul, and that the Water-lily is the sinless and scentless flower of the lake, which blossoms at the gates of Paradise to judge the rest, and that she will enquire strictly what they have done with their odours.OAK.—Rapin tells us that among the ancients there were many conjectural reports as to the origin of the Oak, and the country which first knew the sacred tree: but the popular tradition which met with most credence, he considers, was as follows:—“When Jupiter the world’s foundation laid,Great earth-born giants heaven did invade;And Jove himself—when these he did subdue—His lightning on the factious brethren threw.Tellus her sons’ misfortunes does deplore,And while she cherishes the yet-warm goreOf Rhœcus, from his monstrous body growsA vaster trunk, and from his breast aroseA harden’d Oak; his shoulders are the same,And Oak his high exalted head became.His hundred arms, which lately through the airWere spread, now to as many boughs repair.A sevenfold bark his now stiff trunk does bind;And where the giant stood a tree we find.The earth to Jove straight consecrates this tree,Appeasing so his injured deity.Thus Oaks grew sacred, in whose shelter plac’d,The first good men enjoy’d their Acorn feast.”To do full justice to the legendary lore connected with the Oak, it would be necessary to devote a volume to the subject: the largest, strongest, and as some say, the most useful of the trees of Europe, it has been generally recognised as the king of the forest,“Lord of the woods, the long-surviving Oak.”An emblem of majesty and strength, the Oak has been revered as a symbol of God by almost all the nations of heathendom, and by the Jewish patriarchs. It was underneath the Oaks of Mamre that Abraham dwelt a long time, and there he erected an altar to the Lord, and there he received the three angels. It was underneath an Oak that Jacob hid the idols of his children, for this tree was held sacred and inviolable (Gen. xxxv., 2–4). Under the “Oak of weeping,” the venerable Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, was interred. The messenger of the Lord that appeared to Gideon sat beneath an Oak; and it was a branch of one of these trees that caught the flowing hair of Absalom, and so caused the death of King David’s beloved son. The Oaks of Bashan are several times mentioned in the Bible, and in the sacred volume we are informed that the Israelites worshipped and offered sacrifices beneath the shadow of Oaks which they considered as sacred (Hosea iv., 13; Ezekiel vi., 13; Isaiah i., 29).The ancient Greeks attributed the deluge of Bœotia to the quarrels between Jupiter and Juno. After the rain had ceased and the water subsided, an oaken statue became visible, erected, it is supposed, as a symbol of the peace concluded between the king of the gods and his consort. The Oak was thought by the Greeks to have been the first tree that grew on the earth, and to have yielded for man Acorns and honey, to ensure nourishment and fecundity. They called it, indeed, the mother-tree, and they regarded it as a tree from which the human race had originally sprung—a belief, shared by the Romans, for we find Virgil speaking“Of nymphs and fauns, and savage men, who tookTheir birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak.”Acorns were the first food of man, and there is an old Greek proverb in which a man’s age and experience are expressed by saying that he had eaten of Jove’s Acorns. Some of the classic authors speak of the fatness of the earliest inhabitants of Greece and Southern Europe, who, living in the primeval forests, weresupported almost wholly upon the fruit of the Oak; these primitive people were calledBalanophagi(eaters of Acorns).Homer mentions people entering into compacts under Oaks as places of security, for the tree was highly reverenced by the Greeks, and held a prominent place in their religious and other ceremonies. The Arcadians believed that by stirring with an Oak-branch the waters of a fountain near a temple of Jupiter, on Mount Lycius, rain could be caused to fall. The Fates and Hecate were crowned with Oak-leaves; and a chaplet of Oak adorned the brow of the Dodonæan Jove.The Pelasgic oracle of Jupiter, or Zeus, at Dodona, was situated at the foot of Mount Tamarus, in a wood of Oaks, and the answers were given by an aged woman, called Pelias: and aspelias, in the Attic dialect, means dove, the fable arose that the doves prophesied in the Oak groves of Dodona. Respecting the origin of this oracle, Herodotus narrates that two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes were carried away by Phœnician merchants: one of these was conveyed to Libya, where she founded the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; the other to Greece. The latter remained in the Dodonæan wood, which was much frequented on account of the Acorns. There she had a temple built at the foot of an Oak in honour of Jupiter, whose priestess she had been in Thebes, and here afterwards the oracle was founded. This far-spreading speaking Oak was a lofty and beautiful tree, with evergreen leaves and sweet edible Acorns (the first sustenance of mankind). The Pelasgi regarded this tree as the tree of life. In it the god was supposed to reside, and the rustling of its leaves and the voices of birds showed his presence. When the questioners entered, the Oak rustled, and the Peliades said, “Thus speaks Zeus.” Incense was burned beneath the tree, and sacred doves continually inhabited it; and at its foot a cold spring gushed, as it were, from its roots, and from its murmur the inspired priestesses prophesied. The ship Argo having been built with the wood of trees felled in the Dodonæan grove, one of its beams was endowed with prophetic or oracular power, and counselled the hardy voyagers. Socrates swore by the Oak, the sacred tree of the oracles, and consequently the tree of knowledge.The Romans regarded the Oak as sacred, and the chosen tree of Jupiter, who was sheltered by it at his birth. Thus Lucan mentions “Jove’s Dodonæan tree,” and Ovid, in alluding to the primitive food of man, speaks of Acorns dropping from the tree of Jove. The Oak, says Virgil, is“Jove’s own treeThat holds the worlds in awful sovereignty.* * * * * * * *For length of ages lasts his happy reign,And lives of mortal men contend in vain;Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands;His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.”We have seen how Acorns formed the earliest food of mankind, and in ancient Rome the substitution of Corn was attributed to the bounty of Ceres, who, through the instrumentality of Triptolemus, taught the inhabitants of the earth its use and cultivation.“The Oak, whose Acorns were our food beforeThat Ceres’ seed of mortal man was known,Which first Triptoleme taught how to be sown.”—Spenser.To commemorate this gift, Oak was worn in the festivals in honour of Ceres, as also by the husbandmen in general at the commencement of harvest. In the Eleusinian mysteries, Oaken chaplets were worn.“Then crowned with Oaken chaplets, marched the priestOf Eleusinian Ceres, and with boughsOf Oak were overshadowed in the feastThe teeming basket and the mystic vase.”—Tighe.A Roman who saved the life of another was adjudged a crown of Oak-leaves: thus Lucan writes:—“Straight Lælius from amidst the rest stood forth—An old centurion, of distinguished worth;The Oaken wreath his hardy temples wore,Mark of a citizen preserved he bore.”This civic crown of Oak conferred many notable tokens of honour upon its possessor, who was exempted from all civil burdens, and enjoyed many rights. At Roman weddings, boughs of Oak were carried during the ceremonies as emblems of fecundity.“With boughs of Oak was graced the nuptial train;And Hecate (whose triple form surveysAnd guards from rapine the nocturnal path)Entwined with boughs of Oak her spiral snakes.”—Tighe.Like the Greeks and Romans, the Scandinavians, in their mythology, traced the origin of mankind from either the Ash or the Oak. By the Teutons and Celts the Oak was invested with a mystical sacred character, and it was connected with the worship of their god Teutates. Among the German people, who consecrated the Oak to the god Thunar, the cultus of the sacred tree lingered for a long time, even after Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, at Geismar, on the Weser, had caused the Oak consecrated to the god of thunder to be uprooted. After the establishment of Christianity, the Oak was long supposed to be the abiding-place of the terrible Northern god, and was, consequently, regarded with superstitious awe. Bishop Otho, of Bamberg, in the year 1128, found at Stettin pagan temples, situate near an Oak and a fountain, which had been objects of worship, and were still regarded with superstitious awe, as being consecrated to a god. As the good bishop could not induce the people to cut down these sacred Oaks, he persuaded them that they were inhabited by evil spirits and demons; and, in course of time, the peoplewho before had prostrated themselves before the trees, shunned them in superstitious dread and terror.The ancient Britons dedicated the Oak to Taranis, their god of thunder; and the Celts, under the form of an Oak, are by some authorities stated to have worshipped Baal, the god of fire. On the occasion of anauto-da-fé, we are told that fagots of “grey” Oak were always selected. The festival of Baal was kept at Yule (Christmas); and on the anniversary, the Druids are said to have ordained that every fire should be extinguished, and then re-lighted with the sacred fire, which, in their sacerdotal character, they always kept burning. In this rite, it is supposed, may be traced the origin of the Yule-log, the kindling of which, at Christmas-time, is still kept up in England, though in this country the log is often of Ash. Among the Germans, Czechs, Serbs, and Italians, however, the Yule-log is always of Oak.The Mistletoe which grew on an Oak was regarded by the Druids as the most holy; it was beneath the shade of venerated Oaks that they performed their sacred rites; and when they offered up human sacrifices, the victims, in grim mockery, were crowned with Oak-leaves. The baskets in which they were immolated were composed of Oaken twigs, and the brands with which the sacrificial fires were kindled were cut from Oak-trees. The priests scattered branches of the Oak upon the altars, and after the sacrifice fresh Oak-leaves were cast upon the blood-stained stones.Alluding to the human sacrifices which polluted the recesses of the Druidic groves of Oak, and caused them to be regarded with shuddering terror, Tighe says:—“Such groves in night terrific wrapt the godsOf Gaul, where fostering nymph dared never tread,Nor sylvan deity; no bird here couchedHer wing; no beast here slumbered in his lair;No zephyr woke the silence of the boughs;Alone at eve the trembling Druid soughtThe mystic oracle; alone entrancedAmid the sanctuary stood, whose foulExpanse in horrors veiled a dreaded god.”When an Oak died, the Druids stripped off its bark, and shaped it reverently into the form of a pillar, a pyramid, or a cross, and still continued to worship it as an emblem of their god. In Anglesea, the ancient Mona, are still dug up great trunks of Oak, relics of the Druids’ holy groves. The central Oak was the peculiar object of veneration. The poet relates how men of old,“When through the woods the Northern blastHowled harsh appeased with horrid cries and bloodThe Scythian Taranis; or bowed aroundThe central Oak of Mona’s dismal shade.”The Druids it is believed revered the form of the cross. It is stated to have been their custom to seek studiously for a large and handsome Oak-tree, growing up with two principal arms in theform of a cross beside the main stem. If the two horizontal arms were not sufficiently adapted to the figure, they fastened a crossbeam to it. Then they consecrated it by cutting upon the right branch the wordHesus, upon the middle stemTaranis, and upon the left branchBelenus, and over them the wordThau. The tree thus inscribed was deemed peculiarly sacred, and to it they directed their faces when offering prayer.It was beneath the shade of the Oak that Druidic criminal trials were held—the judge and jury being seated under the branches, and the prisoner placed in a circle traced by the wand of the chief Druid. With the Saxons, the Oak retained its sacred character, and their national meetings were held beneath its shelter. It was below the Oaks of Dartmoor that they held their conference with the Britons, whose land they were invading.In Great Britain, the Oak remained an object of veneration long after the establishment of Christianity. It was under an aged Oak that St. Brigid of Ireland established her retreat for holy women, whence called Kildara, or cell of the Oak. Here had been burning for many centuries the sacred fire of the Druids, but by the piety of St. Brigid the light of Christianity was henceforth to emit its flame from beneath“The Oak of St. Bride, which demon nor Dane,Nor Saxon, nor Dutchman could rend from her fane.”Many of the Druidical sacred Oaks were utilised by the early preachers of the Christian faith, who from beneath their boughs preached the gospel of Christ to the pagan inhabitants. Hence these trees became noted throughout the country as Gospel Oaks, a name which still appertains to many ancient trees existing at the present time in England. It is right to say, however, that other authorities consider the origin of the name to have been the custom of reading the Gospel of the day at a certain tree, when the priest went round the fields to bless the crops.The Sclavonians worshipped Oaks, which they enclosed in a consecrated court. This spot was the sanctuary of all the country, and had its priest, its festivals, and its sacrifices. The inner sanctuary, where grew the sacred Oak, was reserved especially for the priests, sacrificers, and people in danger of their life, who had sought of the priests an asylum. It is said that the ancient Russians, upon arriving at the Isle of St. George, offered up sacrifices beneath a great Oak, before which the people and priests chanted aTe Deum. After the ceremony, the priest distributed the branches of the Oak among the people.It is curious to note how the old Grecian belief in the sacred and supernatural character of the Oak has lingered in Italy. Prof. de Gubernatis tells us that in the Campagna of Rome, about seventeen years ago, a young shepherdess, during a storm, sought shelter under an Oak, and prayed to the Madonna. Whilst sheprayed, a gracious lady appeared before her, and, thanks to her intercession, no rain fell on the Oak, and the girl was enabled to reach home without being wetted by a single drop. Everyone saw it was a miracle; the curé examined her, and from his representations the young girl was received into a convent at Rome, where she probably is preparing herself for canonisation. Under similar circumstances, two centuries ago, a Tuscan shepherdess, Giovanna of Signa, was canonised. In the district of Signa, near Ginestra, the villagers still show a sacred Oak, which people kneel to and adore. The story runs that one day the shepherdess Giovanna, surprised by a storm, called around her the shepherds and their flocks, and stuck her shepherdess’s crook into the ground; when, wondrous to relate, at the same instant shot forth an Oak, which sheltered beneath its branches shepherds and sheep. No one was wetted by the rain. On account of this miracle, Giovanna was made a saint, and near the sacred Oak a little chapel was erected to the Virgin. Strange to say, the tree throws down anyone climbing into its branches to cut boughs; but people are permitted to pluck sprays, which are believed to guard themselves and their houses from the effects of storms, provided that the names of Jesus and Mary are invoked with certain ceremonies.Among the Bolognese, who inhabit a district once occupied by the Celts, and consequently Druidic, the sacred character of Oak-trees was long acknowledged. In the fourteenth century, there stood in Bologna an ancient Oak, which was regarded with the greatest reverence, and beneath its boughs all important gatherings of the people took place. In their religious processions the children still carry garlands of the Oak and Olive. In the country districts, images of the Virgin are often suspended from Oak-trees, and these effigies are called after the trees, the little Madonnas of the Oak. A legend of Bologna relates that in a chapel an image of the Virgin had long been neglected, and overlooked, till, one day, a pious shepherd took it away, and placed it in the trunk of a Cork-tree (a species of Oak, theQuercus Suber). Henceforth he visited it daily, and to honour the Virgin played on the flute. The thief having been denounced, the shepherd was seized and condemned to death; but during the night, through the intervention of the Madonna, the statue and the shepherd both returned to their favourite tree, and notwithstanding subsequent efforts to remove them, they again took up their place beneath its boughs. Then the people recognised a miracle performed by the Virgin, and falling on their knees before the statue in the Oak, they asked pardon of the shepherd.The time-honoured belief in the sacred and supernatural attributes of the Oak have doubtless caused it to be regarded, even at the present day, as a tree which would vicariously bear the diseases of men. Thus, in England, Cross Oaks, which were trees planted at the juncture of cross-roads, were formerly resorted to by peoplesuffering from ague, for the purpose of transferring to them their malady: this they did by pegging a lock of their hair into one of the trees, and then, by a sudden wrench, transferring the lock from their heads to the Oak, and with the lock the ague.In Germany, there still exists a custom of creeping through an Oak cleft to cure hernia and other disorders. There was, near Wittstock, in Altmark, a bushy Oak, the branches of which had grown together again at some distance from the stem, leaving open spaces between them. Whoever crept through these spaces was freed from his malady, whatever it might be, and many crutches lay about, which had been thrown away by visitors to the tree whose ailments had been cured. In Russia, a similar custom is extant, the favourite tree there being theQuercus Ilex.A belief that Oak-trees were the homes of Dryads, Hamadryads, spirits, elves, and fairies has existed since the days of the ancient Greeks. Pindar speaks of a Hamadryad as “doomed to a term of existence coeval with the Oak.” Callimachus represents Melia “deeply sighing for her coeval Oak,” and tells us that“The Dryads laugh when vernal showers return;O’er Autumn’s fading leaves the Dryads mourn.”Preston, in his translation of Apollonius, makes a Hamadryad plead in vain for her existence, threatened by the destruction of the Oak in which she dwelt:—“As in the mountain, with repeated stroke,The churlish fellow felled the stubborn Oak;Impious, he scorned the Hamadryad’s prayer,And smote the tree coeval with the fair.With streaming tears she pleads a suppliant strainTo that unfeeling churl, but pleads in vain.‘Oh, rustic, stay, nor wound the hallowed rind,For ages with that stem I live entwined.’”In Germany, the holes in the trunks of Oaks are thought to be utilised by the elves inhabiting the trees as means of entry and exit; in our own country, Oaks have always been reputed as the trees in whose boughs elves delighted to find shelter. The fairies, too, were fond of dancing around Oaks: thus Tighe, apostrophising the monarch of the forest, exclaims:—“The fairies from their nightly haunt,In copse, or dell, or round the trunk reveredOf Herne’s moon-silvered Oak, shall chase awayEach fog, each blight, and dedicate to peaceThy classic shade.”In these lines allusion is made to a famous tree in Windsor Forest, one of a long series of celebrated Oaks—“lusty trees,” which, as Robert Turner writes, England “did once so flourish with, that it was called Druina by some.” One of these, known as the Cadenham Oak, in the New Forest, is said, like the Glastonbury Thorn, to mark the birthday of our Lord by budding on Christmas Day. Another, renowned as the Royal Oak, is reverencedas having been the hiding-place of Charles II., after the battle of Worcester. In this tree, not far from Boscobel House, the king, and his companion, Col. Careless, or Carless, resorted when they thought it no longer safe to remain in the house—the family giving them victuals on a Nut-hook. From this tree Charles gathered some Acorns, and set them himself in St. James’s Park:—
“When once, as Fame reports, the Queen of LoveIn Ida’s valley raised a Myrtle grove,Young wanton Cupids danced a summer’s nightRound the sweet place by Cynthia’s silver light.Venus this charming green alone prefers,And this of all the verdant kind is hers:Hence the bride’s brow with Myrtle wreaths is graced,When the long-wished-for night is come at last;And Juno (queen of nuptial mysteries)Makes all her torches of these fragrant trees.Hence in Elysian fields are Myrtles saidTo favour lovers with their friendly shade,There Phædra, Procris (ancient poets feign),And Eriphyle still of love complain,Whose unextinguished flames e’en after death remain.Nor is this all the honour Myrtles claim:When from the Sabine war Tudertus came,He wreathed his temples from the Myrtle grove,Sacred to Triumph as before to Love.”
“When once, as Fame reports, the Queen of LoveIn Ida’s valley raised a Myrtle grove,Young wanton Cupids danced a summer’s nightRound the sweet place by Cynthia’s silver light.Venus this charming green alone prefers,And this of all the verdant kind is hers:Hence the bride’s brow with Myrtle wreaths is graced,When the long-wished-for night is come at last;And Juno (queen of nuptial mysteries)Makes all her torches of these fragrant trees.Hence in Elysian fields are Myrtles saidTo favour lovers with their friendly shade,There Phædra, Procris (ancient poets feign),And Eriphyle still of love complain,Whose unextinguished flames e’en after death remain.Nor is this all the honour Myrtles claim:When from the Sabine war Tudertus came,He wreathed his temples from the Myrtle grove,Sacred to Triumph as before to Love.”
“When once, as Fame reports, the Queen of LoveIn Ida’s valley raised a Myrtle grove,Young wanton Cupids danced a summer’s nightRound the sweet place by Cynthia’s silver light.Venus this charming green alone prefers,And this of all the verdant kind is hers:Hence the bride’s brow with Myrtle wreaths is graced,When the long-wished-for night is come at last;And Juno (queen of nuptial mysteries)Makes all her torches of these fragrant trees.
“When once, as Fame reports, the Queen of Love
In Ida’s valley raised a Myrtle grove,
Young wanton Cupids danced a summer’s night
Round the sweet place by Cynthia’s silver light.
Venus this charming green alone prefers,
And this of all the verdant kind is hers:
Hence the bride’s brow with Myrtle wreaths is graced,
When the long-wished-for night is come at last;
And Juno (queen of nuptial mysteries)
Makes all her torches of these fragrant trees.
Hence in Elysian fields are Myrtles saidTo favour lovers with their friendly shade,There Phædra, Procris (ancient poets feign),And Eriphyle still of love complain,Whose unextinguished flames e’en after death remain.Nor is this all the honour Myrtles claim:When from the Sabine war Tudertus came,He wreathed his temples from the Myrtle grove,Sacred to Triumph as before to Love.”
Hence in Elysian fields are Myrtles said
To favour lovers with their friendly shade,
There Phædra, Procris (ancient poets feign),
And Eriphyle still of love complain,
Whose unextinguished flames e’en after death remain.
Nor is this all the honour Myrtles claim:
When from the Sabine war Tudertus came,
He wreathed his temples from the Myrtle grove,
Sacred to Triumph as before to Love.”
To dream of seeing a fine Myrtle portends many lovers and a legacy. If a married person dreams of Myrtle, it prognosticates a second marriage. A similar dream for the second time portends a second marriage to a person who has also been married before. Myrtle seen in a dream denotes, as a rule, a numerous family, wealth, and old age.
NARCISSUS.—The white, or Poet’s, Narcissus owes its origin to a beautiful youth of Bœotia, of whom it had been foretold he should live happily until he beheld his own face. Caressed and petted by the Nymphs, and passionately loved by the unhappy Echo, he slighted and rejected their advances; but one day, when heated by the chase, he stopped to quench his thirst in a stream, and in so doing beheld the reflection of his own lovely features. Enamoured instantly of his own beauty, he became spell-bound to the spot, where he pined to death. Ovid relates how the flower known by his name sprang from the corpse of Narcissus:—
“As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run,And trickle into drops before the sun,So melts the youth, and languishes away;His beauty withers, and his limbs decay;And none of those attractive charms remain,To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.She saw him in his present misery,Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see;She answered sadly to the lover’s moan,Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan.‘Ah, youth belov’d in vain!’ Narcissus cries;‘Ah, youth beloved in vain!’ the Nymph replies.‘Farewell!’ says he;—the parting sound scarce fellFrom his faint lips but she replied, ‘Farewell!’Then on th’ unwholesome earth he gasping lies,Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,And in the Stygian waves itself admires.For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn.And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn;When, looking for his corpse, they only foundA rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown’d.”—Addison.
“As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run,And trickle into drops before the sun,So melts the youth, and languishes away;His beauty withers, and his limbs decay;And none of those attractive charms remain,To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.She saw him in his present misery,Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see;She answered sadly to the lover’s moan,Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan.‘Ah, youth belov’d in vain!’ Narcissus cries;‘Ah, youth beloved in vain!’ the Nymph replies.‘Farewell!’ says he;—the parting sound scarce fellFrom his faint lips but she replied, ‘Farewell!’Then on th’ unwholesome earth he gasping lies,Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,And in the Stygian waves itself admires.For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn.And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn;When, looking for his corpse, they only foundA rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown’d.”—Addison.
“As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run,And trickle into drops before the sun,So melts the youth, and languishes away;His beauty withers, and his limbs decay;And none of those attractive charms remain,To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.She saw him in his present misery,Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see;She answered sadly to the lover’s moan,Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan.‘Ah, youth belov’d in vain!’ Narcissus cries;‘Ah, youth beloved in vain!’ the Nymph replies.‘Farewell!’ says he;—the parting sound scarce fellFrom his faint lips but she replied, ‘Farewell!’Then on th’ unwholesome earth he gasping lies,Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,And in the Stygian waves itself admires.
“As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run,
And trickle into drops before the sun,
So melts the youth, and languishes away;
His beauty withers, and his limbs decay;
And none of those attractive charms remain,
To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.
She saw him in his present misery,
Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see;
She answered sadly to the lover’s moan,
Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan.
‘Ah, youth belov’d in vain!’ Narcissus cries;
‘Ah, youth beloved in vain!’ the Nymph replies.
‘Farewell!’ says he;—the parting sound scarce fell
From his faint lips but she replied, ‘Farewell!’
Then on th’ unwholesome earth he gasping lies,
Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.
To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,
And in the Stygian waves itself admires.
For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn.And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn;When, looking for his corpse, they only foundA rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown’d.”—Addison.
For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn.
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn;
When, looking for his corpse, they only found
A rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown’d.”—Addison.
The cup in the centre of the flower is fabled to contain the tears of Narcissus. Virgil alludes to this (Georgic IV.) when, in speaking of the occupations of bees, he says: “Some place within the house the tears of Narcissus.” Milton also refers to this fancy in thefollowing lines, when introducing the Narcissus under its old English name of Daffodil:—
“Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,And Daffodillies fill their cups with tears,To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies.”
“Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,And Daffodillies fill their cups with tears,To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies.”
“Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And Daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies.”
The Daffodil is supposed to be one of the flowers which Proserpine was gathering when she was seized and carried off by Pluto (Dis). The Earth, at the instigation of Jupiter, had brought forth the lovely blossom for a lure to the unsuspecting maid. An old Greek hymn contains the tale:—
“In Sicilia’s ever-blooming shade,When playful Proserpine from Ceres strayed,Led with unwary step, the virgin trainO’er Ætna’s steeps and Enna’s flow’ry plainPluck’d with fair hand the silver-blossom’d bower,And purpled mead,—herself a fairer flower;Sudden, unseen, amidst the twilight glade,Rushed gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid.”
“In Sicilia’s ever-blooming shade,When playful Proserpine from Ceres strayed,Led with unwary step, the virgin trainO’er Ætna’s steeps and Enna’s flow’ry plainPluck’d with fair hand the silver-blossom’d bower,And purpled mead,—herself a fairer flower;Sudden, unseen, amidst the twilight glade,Rushed gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid.”
“In Sicilia’s ever-blooming shade,
When playful Proserpine from Ceres strayed,
Led with unwary step, the virgin train
O’er Ætna’s steeps and Enna’s flow’ry plain
Pluck’d with fair hand the silver-blossom’d bower,
And purpled mead,—herself a fairer flower;
Sudden, unseen, amidst the twilight glade,
Rushed gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid.”
Shakspeare, in ‘A Winter’s Tale,’ alludes to the same story:—
“O Proserpina,For the flowers now that, frightened, thou let’st fall,From Dis’s waggon! DaffodilsThat come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty.”
“O Proserpina,For the flowers now that, frightened, thou let’st fall,From Dis’s waggon! DaffodilsThat come before the swallow dares, and takeThe winds of March with beauty.”
“O Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frightened, thou let’st fall,
From Dis’s waggon! Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
Other accounts of a similar legend, slightly varied, state that it was at the instigation of Venus that Pluto employed the Narcissus to entice Proserpine to the lower world.——Ancient writers referred to the Narcissus as the flower of deceit, on account of its narcotic properties; for although, as Homer assures us, it delights heaven and earth by its odour and beauty, yet, at the same time, it produces stupor, madness, and even death.——It was consecrated both to Ceres and Proserpine, on which account Sophocles poetically alludes to it as the garland of the great goddesses. “And ever, day by day, the Narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, the ancient coronet of the ‘mighty goddesses,’ bursts into bloom by heaven’s dew” (Œdipus Coloneus).——The Fates wore wreaths of the Narcissus, and the Greeks twined the white stars of the odorous blossoms among the tangled locks of the Eumenides. A crown composed of these flowers was wont to be woven in honour of the infernal gods, and placed upon the heads of the dead.——The Narcissus is essentially the flower of Lent; but when mixed with the Yew, which is symbolical of the Resurrection, it becomes a suitable decoration for Easter:—
“See that there be stores of Lilies,Called by shepherds Daffodillies.”—Drayton.
“See that there be stores of Lilies,Called by shepherds Daffodillies.”—Drayton.
“See that there be stores of Lilies,
Called by shepherds Daffodillies.”—Drayton.
Herrick, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, all sing the praises of the Narcissus, or Lent Lily, the Daffodil and Daffadowndily of our forefathers,—names which they formed from the still older one of Affodilly, a corruption ofAsphodelus.
NASTURTIUM.—According to Rapin, the Nasturtium was once a young Trojan huntsman; but the Jesuit poet gives no details of the metamorphosis, merely stating that
“Shield-like Nasturtium, too, confusedly spread,With intermingling Trefoil fills each bed—Once graceful youths; this last a Grecian swain,The first an huntsman on the Trojan plain.”
“Shield-like Nasturtium, too, confusedly spread,With intermingling Trefoil fills each bed—Once graceful youths; this last a Grecian swain,The first an huntsman on the Trojan plain.”
“Shield-like Nasturtium, too, confusedly spread,
With intermingling Trefoil fills each bed—
Once graceful youths; this last a Grecian swain,
The first an huntsman on the Trojan plain.”
Theshield-like form of the Nasturtium’s leaves and its curiously-shaped flowers, which resemble golden helmets, have obtained for the plant the Latin name of “Tropæolum” (trophy). Its old English names were Yellow Lark’s-heels and Indian Cress.——The seed of the Nasturtium, according to Macer Floridus, possess a great power to repel serpents.——Linnæus has recorded that his daughter Elizabeth Christina observed the flowers of the Nasturtium emit spontaneously, at certain intervals, sparks like electric ones, visible only in the evening.
NEEM.—The Neem-tree (Azardirachta Indica) is considered by the Indians a sacred tree, and is described by their poets as the type of everything bitter. Its bark is used as a substitute for Cinchona in cases of fevers.
NELUMBO.—The Nelumbo, Sacred Lotus, or Padma (Nelumbium speciosum), was the Sacred Bean of Egypt, the Rose Lily of the Nile spoken of by Herodotus. The beauty of its blossoms, which are sometimes of a brilliant red colour, but rarely white, hanging over broad peltated leaves considerably above the surface of the water, render this the most lovely and graceful of all the Water Lilies; and at the same time it is the most interesting on account of its remote historical associations. Four thousand years ago the Nelumbo was the emblem of sanctity in Egypt amongst the priests of a religion long since defunct; and the plant itself has long been extinct in that country, though in India and China the flowers are held especially sacred, and the plant is commonly cultivated. The Chinese call this sacred flower theLien-wha, and prize it above all others. Celebrated for its beauty by their poets, and ranked for its virtues among the plants which, according to Chinese theology, enter into the beverage of immortality, thisLien-whais to the Chinese what the Gul or Rose is to the Persians; and a moonlight excursion on a tranquil river covered with its yellow blossoms is numbered by the inhabitants of the Flowery Land among the supreme delights of mortal existence. (See alsoLotusandNymphæa).
NETTLE.—The Nettle is one of the five plants which are stated by the Mishna to be the “bitter herbs” ordered to be partaken of by the Jews at the Feast of the Passover.——In Ireland, the Nettle of Timor is known asDaoun Setan, or the Devil’s Apron; and in the southern parts of the island it is a common practice for schoolboys, once a year, to consider themselves privileged to runwildly about with a bunch of Nettles, striking at the face and hands of their companions or of such other persons as they fancy they may venture to assault with impunity.——The Roman Nettle (Urtica pilulifera) is the most venomous of British Nettles, and is found abundantly about Romney, in Kent, where, according to Camden, the Roman soldiers brought the seed with them, and sowed it for their own use, to rub and chafe their limbs when, through extreme cold, they should be stiff and benumbed; having been told before they came from home that the climate of England was so cold that it was not to be endured without having recourse to some friction to warm their blood and to stir up natural heat.——Among the various remedies once prescribed for the “trembling fever,” or ague, by Catherine Oswald, a noted herbalist, was one which related to plucking up a Nettle by the root three successive mornings before sunrise. In bygone times, Nettle and Milfoil carried about the person used to be believed to drive away fear, and to be a certain charm against malignant spirits.——The Scotch say that to cure the sting of a Nettle, the person stung must rub the leaves of a Dock over the part affected, repeating at the same time: “Nettle in, Dock out; Dock rub Nettle out.” This charm was known to Chaucer, who uses it as a common saying, implying lovers’ inconstancy, in ‘Troilus and Cresside’:—
“But canst thou playen racket to and fro,Nettle in, Dock out, now this, now that, Pandure?”
“But canst thou playen racket to and fro,Nettle in, Dock out, now this, now that, Pandure?”
“But canst thou playen racket to and fro,
Nettle in, Dock out, now this, now that, Pandure?”
In German mythology, the Nettle was consecrated to the god Thor.——In the Tyrol, during thunderstorms, the mountaineers throw Nettles on the fire to avert danger, and more especially to guard themselves from lightning; this custom also prevails in some parts of Italy.——In Germany, there exists a superstition that Nettles gathered before sunrise will drive away evil spirits from cattle.——The god Thor was, among the ancient Germans, regarded as the guardian deity of marriage; hence it is, perhaps, that in Germany Nettle-seed is believed to excite the passions and to facilitate births.——In dream lore, to fancy you are stung by Nettles indicates vexation and disappointment; to dream of gathering Nettles denotes that someone has formed a favourable opinion of you; and if the dreamer be married, then that the domestic circle will be blessed with concord and harmony.——Astrologers place Nettles under the dominion of Mars.
NIGHTSHADE.—The Deadly Nightshade (Atropa Belladonna), or Death’s Herb, is a plant of ill omen, and one of which witches are reported to be fond: it is so poisonous in its nature, that Gerarde says: “If you will follow my counsell, deale not with the same in any case, and banish it from your gardens, and the use of it also, being a plant so furious and deadly; for it bringeth such as have eaten thereof into a dead sleepe, wherein many have died.” Buchanan relates that the Scots, under Macbeth, beingdesirous of poisoning the Danes, treacherously took the opportunity, during a period of truce, to mix the poisonous Nightshade with the beer with which they had agreed to supply them. Thus stupefied, Sweno’s army slept soundly, and the Scots, falling upon their enemies, destroyed them in their helplessness.——According to Gassendi, a shepherd in Provence produced visions and prophesied, through the use of Deadly Nightshade.——The Nightshade (Solanum Dulcamara) has poisonous red berries; but the root and leaves have been applied to several medicinal uses.——The Vale of Furness, Lancashire, is still known by the name of Valley of Nightshade, on account of the plant being exceedingly plentiful there. Sprigs of Nightshade appeared on the ancient seals of the Abbey.
NIMBU.—The Nimbu (Melia Azedarach) is a native of the warm parts of Asia, and bears a variety of names in different countries, such as the Holy Tree, Pride of India, Bead Tree (in allusion to the seeds being strung for chaplets),Persian Lilac, and Hill Margosa. Bishop Heber saw it in India, and states that the natives have a profound reverence for the tree, which they believe has the power to ward off witchcraft and the Evil Eye.
NIPA PALM.—The Nipa, or Susa (Nipa fruticans), is the sacred tree of Borneo, and is the most valuable of all growing things to the Dyaks of that country. The seeds, it is recorded, lie dormant in the fruit several years before germination, when the fruit becomes detached from the plant and is floated off by the tide to establish itself on some other mudbank. This plant only grows where fever and Mangroves flourish.
None-so-Pretty, orNancy-Pretty.—SeeLondon Pride.
Nosebleed.—SeeYarrow.
NUTMEGS.—In the Middle Ages, a curious belief existed that Nutmegs, Cloves, Cinnamon, and Ginger all grew on the same tree.——The strength of the Nutmeg in the season is said so to overcome the birds of Paradise, that they fall helplessly intoxicated.——To dream of Nutmegs is stated to be a sign of many impending changes.
NUTS.—When the Scandinavian god Loki, transformed into a falcon, rescued Idhunn, the goddess of youthful life, from the power of the Frost-giants, it was in the shape of a Hazel-nut that he carried her off in his beak.——The Hazel was sacred to Thor, and was in olden times regarded as an actual embodiment of lightning: hence it possessed great virtue as a promoter of fruitfulness, and Hazel-nuts became a favourite medium in divinations relating to love and marriage.——In old Rome, Nuts were scattered at marriages, as they are now in Italy and in Altmark.——In Westphalia and other parts of Germany, a few Nuts are mixed with the seed-corn to act as a charm in making it prolific.——In Hertfordshireand other parts of England, as well as in Germany, a certain relation is believed to exist between the produce of the Hazel-bushes and the increase of the population; a good Nut year always bringing an abundance of babies. In Westphalia, the proverb runs, “Plenty of Nuts, plenty of babies.”——Brand says it is a custom in Iceland, when a maiden would know if her lover is faithful, to put three Nuts upon the bar of a grate, naming them after her lover and herself. If a Nut crack or jump, the lover will prove faithless; if it begin to blaze or burn, it is a sign of the fervour of his affection. If the Nuts named after the girl and her swain burn together, they will be married. This divination is still practised in Scotland on Hallowe’en, whose mysterious rites Burns has immortalised in his poem, containing these lines:—
“Some merry friendly countree folksTogether did conveneTo burn their Nits and pu’ their stocks,And haud their Hallowe’en,Fu’ blithe that night.”
“Some merry friendly countree folksTogether did conveneTo burn their Nits and pu’ their stocks,And haud their Hallowe’en,Fu’ blithe that night.”
“Some merry friendly countree folks
Together did convene
To burn their Nits and pu’ their stocks,
And haud their Hallowe’en,
Fu’ blithe that night.”
A similar custom has for years existed in Ireland; and Gray, long before Burns, had evidenced that the superstitions of Hallowe’en or Nutcrack Night (October 31st) were known and practised in England, as thus—
“Two Hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,And to each Nut I gave a sweetheart’s name.This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,That with a flame of brightest colour blazed.As blazed the Nut, so may thy passion grow;For ’twasthyNut that did so brightly glow.”
“Two Hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,And to each Nut I gave a sweetheart’s name.This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,That with a flame of brightest colour blazed.As blazed the Nut, so may thy passion grow;For ’twasthyNut that did so brightly glow.”
“Two Hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each Nut I gave a sweetheart’s name.
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
That with a flame of brightest colour blazed.
As blazed the Nut, so may thy passion grow;
For ’twasthyNut that did so brightly glow.”
In Bohemia, on Christmas Eve, girls fix coloured wax lights in the shells of the first parcel of Nuts they have opened that day, light them all at the same time, and set them floating in the water, after mentally giving to each the name of a wooer. He whose lighted bark first approaches the girl will be her future husband. If an unwelcome suitor seems likely to be first in, the girl endeavours to retard the shell by blowing against it, and by this means the favourite’s bark usually wins. Should, however, one of the lights be perchance blown out, it is accounted a portent of death.——The instrument used by the nutter in robbing the Hazel of its fruit seems to have been formerly regarded as opprobrious, and as suggestive of a thief: thus, in the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ Nym says: “If you run the Nut-hook’s humour on me,” or, in other words, “If you call me a thief.” Again, in ‘Henry IV.,’ Part II., Doll Tearsheet cries out to the beadle: “Nut-hook, Nut-hook, you lie!”——In Sussex, there is a proverb current: “As black as the De’il’s nutting bag;” and it is held to be dangerous to go out nutting on Sunday, for fear of meeting the Evil One, who haunts the Nut-bushes, and sometimes appears to nutters in friendly guise, and holds down the branches for them to strip.——In bygone times, it was believed that a spirit of a weird and sinister character inhabiteda Nut-grove.——There is a superstition that the ashes of the shells of Hazel-nuts have merely to be applied to the back of a child’s head to ensure the colour of the iris in the infant’s eyes turning from grey to black.——In Germany, Nuts are placed in tombs, as being emblematic of regeneration and immortality. Searchers in the old tombs of Wurtemburg sometimes found Pumpkins and Walnuts, but always a number of Nuts.——In some countries, Hazel-nuts are supposed to be endowed with the power of discovering or attracting wealth. Thus, in Russia, there is a belief that anyone carrying a Nut in his house will make money; and on this account many of the Russian peasantry invariably carry a double Nut in their purses. In fairy tales, we often find good fairies using Nuts as their carriages: as, in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Mercutio speaks of Queen Mab arriving in a Nut-shell.——There is a legend that St. Agatha every year crosses the sea from Catania to Gallipoli on a Nut-shell, which she employs as a boat.——Authorities on the subject say that to dream that you see Nut-trees, and that you crack and eat their fruit, signifies riches and content gained with toil and pain. Clusters of Nuts imply happiness and success: to dream of gathering Nuts is a bad omen; and to dream of finding Nuts that have been hid signifies the discovery of treasure.
NYMPHÆA.—TheNymphæa cœruleais the Lily of the Nile, the Lotus of ancient Egypt; but not the Sacred Bean, which was theNelumbium speciosum. (SeeLotusandNelumbo).——According to German tradition, the Undines often conceal themselves from mortal gaze under the form of Nymphæas.——This beautiful Water-lily was deemed by the Frisians to have a magical power. Dr. Halbertsma has stated that, when a boy, he remembers people were extremely careful in plucking and handling them; for if anyone fell with such a flower in his possession, he became immediately subject to fits.——The Wallachians have a superstition that every flower has a soul, and that the Water-lily is the sinless and scentless flower of the lake, which blossoms at the gates of Paradise to judge the rest, and that she will enquire strictly what they have done with their odours.
OAK.—Rapin tells us that among the ancients there were many conjectural reports as to the origin of the Oak, and the country which first knew the sacred tree: but the popular tradition which met with most credence, he considers, was as follows:—
“When Jupiter the world’s foundation laid,Great earth-born giants heaven did invade;And Jove himself—when these he did subdue—His lightning on the factious brethren threw.Tellus her sons’ misfortunes does deplore,And while she cherishes the yet-warm goreOf Rhœcus, from his monstrous body growsA vaster trunk, and from his breast aroseA harden’d Oak; his shoulders are the same,And Oak his high exalted head became.His hundred arms, which lately through the airWere spread, now to as many boughs repair.A sevenfold bark his now stiff trunk does bind;And where the giant stood a tree we find.The earth to Jove straight consecrates this tree,Appeasing so his injured deity.Thus Oaks grew sacred, in whose shelter plac’d,The first good men enjoy’d their Acorn feast.”
“When Jupiter the world’s foundation laid,Great earth-born giants heaven did invade;And Jove himself—when these he did subdue—His lightning on the factious brethren threw.Tellus her sons’ misfortunes does deplore,And while she cherishes the yet-warm goreOf Rhœcus, from his monstrous body growsA vaster trunk, and from his breast aroseA harden’d Oak; his shoulders are the same,And Oak his high exalted head became.His hundred arms, which lately through the airWere spread, now to as many boughs repair.A sevenfold bark his now stiff trunk does bind;And where the giant stood a tree we find.The earth to Jove straight consecrates this tree,Appeasing so his injured deity.Thus Oaks grew sacred, in whose shelter plac’d,The first good men enjoy’d their Acorn feast.”
“When Jupiter the world’s foundation laid,
Great earth-born giants heaven did invade;
And Jove himself—when these he did subdue—
His lightning on the factious brethren threw.
Tellus her sons’ misfortunes does deplore,
And while she cherishes the yet-warm gore
Of Rhœcus, from his monstrous body grows
A vaster trunk, and from his breast arose
A harden’d Oak; his shoulders are the same,
And Oak his high exalted head became.
His hundred arms, which lately through the air
Were spread, now to as many boughs repair.
A sevenfold bark his now stiff trunk does bind;
And where the giant stood a tree we find.
The earth to Jove straight consecrates this tree,
Appeasing so his injured deity.
Thus Oaks grew sacred, in whose shelter plac’d,
The first good men enjoy’d their Acorn feast.”
To do full justice to the legendary lore connected with the Oak, it would be necessary to devote a volume to the subject: the largest, strongest, and as some say, the most useful of the trees of Europe, it has been generally recognised as the king of the forest,
“Lord of the woods, the long-surviving Oak.”
“Lord of the woods, the long-surviving Oak.”
An emblem of majesty and strength, the Oak has been revered as a symbol of God by almost all the nations of heathendom, and by the Jewish patriarchs. It was underneath the Oaks of Mamre that Abraham dwelt a long time, and there he erected an altar to the Lord, and there he received the three angels. It was underneath an Oak that Jacob hid the idols of his children, for this tree was held sacred and inviolable (Gen. xxxv., 2–4). Under the “Oak of weeping,” the venerable Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, was interred. The messenger of the Lord that appeared to Gideon sat beneath an Oak; and it was a branch of one of these trees that caught the flowing hair of Absalom, and so caused the death of King David’s beloved son. The Oaks of Bashan are several times mentioned in the Bible, and in the sacred volume we are informed that the Israelites worshipped and offered sacrifices beneath the shadow of Oaks which they considered as sacred (Hosea iv., 13; Ezekiel vi., 13; Isaiah i., 29).
The ancient Greeks attributed the deluge of Bœotia to the quarrels between Jupiter and Juno. After the rain had ceased and the water subsided, an oaken statue became visible, erected, it is supposed, as a symbol of the peace concluded between the king of the gods and his consort. The Oak was thought by the Greeks to have been the first tree that grew on the earth, and to have yielded for man Acorns and honey, to ensure nourishment and fecundity. They called it, indeed, the mother-tree, and they regarded it as a tree from which the human race had originally sprung—a belief, shared by the Romans, for we find Virgil speaking
“Of nymphs and fauns, and savage men, who tookTheir birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak.”
“Of nymphs and fauns, and savage men, who tookTheir birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak.”
“Of nymphs and fauns, and savage men, who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak.”
Acorns were the first food of man, and there is an old Greek proverb in which a man’s age and experience are expressed by saying that he had eaten of Jove’s Acorns. Some of the classic authors speak of the fatness of the earliest inhabitants of Greece and Southern Europe, who, living in the primeval forests, weresupported almost wholly upon the fruit of the Oak; these primitive people were calledBalanophagi(eaters of Acorns).
Homer mentions people entering into compacts under Oaks as places of security, for the tree was highly reverenced by the Greeks, and held a prominent place in their religious and other ceremonies. The Arcadians believed that by stirring with an Oak-branch the waters of a fountain near a temple of Jupiter, on Mount Lycius, rain could be caused to fall. The Fates and Hecate were crowned with Oak-leaves; and a chaplet of Oak adorned the brow of the Dodonæan Jove.
The Pelasgic oracle of Jupiter, or Zeus, at Dodona, was situated at the foot of Mount Tamarus, in a wood of Oaks, and the answers were given by an aged woman, called Pelias: and aspelias, in the Attic dialect, means dove, the fable arose that the doves prophesied in the Oak groves of Dodona. Respecting the origin of this oracle, Herodotus narrates that two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes were carried away by Phœnician merchants: one of these was conveyed to Libya, where she founded the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; the other to Greece. The latter remained in the Dodonæan wood, which was much frequented on account of the Acorns. There she had a temple built at the foot of an Oak in honour of Jupiter, whose priestess she had been in Thebes, and here afterwards the oracle was founded. This far-spreading speaking Oak was a lofty and beautiful tree, with evergreen leaves and sweet edible Acorns (the first sustenance of mankind). The Pelasgi regarded this tree as the tree of life. In it the god was supposed to reside, and the rustling of its leaves and the voices of birds showed his presence. When the questioners entered, the Oak rustled, and the Peliades said, “Thus speaks Zeus.” Incense was burned beneath the tree, and sacred doves continually inhabited it; and at its foot a cold spring gushed, as it were, from its roots, and from its murmur the inspired priestesses prophesied. The ship Argo having been built with the wood of trees felled in the Dodonæan grove, one of its beams was endowed with prophetic or oracular power, and counselled the hardy voyagers. Socrates swore by the Oak, the sacred tree of the oracles, and consequently the tree of knowledge.
The Romans regarded the Oak as sacred, and the chosen tree of Jupiter, who was sheltered by it at his birth. Thus Lucan mentions “Jove’s Dodonæan tree,” and Ovid, in alluding to the primitive food of man, speaks of Acorns dropping from the tree of Jove. The Oak, says Virgil, is
“Jove’s own treeThat holds the worlds in awful sovereignty.* * * * * * * *For length of ages lasts his happy reign,And lives of mortal men contend in vain;Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands;His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.”
“Jove’s own treeThat holds the worlds in awful sovereignty.* * * * * * * *For length of ages lasts his happy reign,And lives of mortal men contend in vain;Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands;His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.”
“Jove’s own tree
That holds the worlds in awful sovereignty.
* * * * * * * *
For length of ages lasts his happy reign,
And lives of mortal men contend in vain;
Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,
Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands;
His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.”
We have seen how Acorns formed the earliest food of mankind, and in ancient Rome the substitution of Corn was attributed to the bounty of Ceres, who, through the instrumentality of Triptolemus, taught the inhabitants of the earth its use and cultivation.
“The Oak, whose Acorns were our food beforeThat Ceres’ seed of mortal man was known,Which first Triptoleme taught how to be sown.”—Spenser.
“The Oak, whose Acorns were our food beforeThat Ceres’ seed of mortal man was known,Which first Triptoleme taught how to be sown.”—Spenser.
“The Oak, whose Acorns were our food before
That Ceres’ seed of mortal man was known,
Which first Triptoleme taught how to be sown.”—Spenser.
To commemorate this gift, Oak was worn in the festivals in honour of Ceres, as also by the husbandmen in general at the commencement of harvest. In the Eleusinian mysteries, Oaken chaplets were worn.
“Then crowned with Oaken chaplets, marched the priestOf Eleusinian Ceres, and with boughsOf Oak were overshadowed in the feastThe teeming basket and the mystic vase.”—Tighe.
“Then crowned with Oaken chaplets, marched the priestOf Eleusinian Ceres, and with boughsOf Oak were overshadowed in the feastThe teeming basket and the mystic vase.”—Tighe.
“Then crowned with Oaken chaplets, marched the priest
Of Eleusinian Ceres, and with boughs
Of Oak were overshadowed in the feast
The teeming basket and the mystic vase.”—Tighe.
A Roman who saved the life of another was adjudged a crown of Oak-leaves: thus Lucan writes:—
“Straight Lælius from amidst the rest stood forth—An old centurion, of distinguished worth;The Oaken wreath his hardy temples wore,Mark of a citizen preserved he bore.”
“Straight Lælius from amidst the rest stood forth—An old centurion, of distinguished worth;The Oaken wreath his hardy temples wore,Mark of a citizen preserved he bore.”
“Straight Lælius from amidst the rest stood forth—
An old centurion, of distinguished worth;
The Oaken wreath his hardy temples wore,
Mark of a citizen preserved he bore.”
This civic crown of Oak conferred many notable tokens of honour upon its possessor, who was exempted from all civil burdens, and enjoyed many rights. At Roman weddings, boughs of Oak were carried during the ceremonies as emblems of fecundity.
“With boughs of Oak was graced the nuptial train;And Hecate (whose triple form surveysAnd guards from rapine the nocturnal path)Entwined with boughs of Oak her spiral snakes.”—Tighe.
“With boughs of Oak was graced the nuptial train;And Hecate (whose triple form surveysAnd guards from rapine the nocturnal path)Entwined with boughs of Oak her spiral snakes.”—Tighe.
“With boughs of Oak was graced the nuptial train;
And Hecate (whose triple form surveys
And guards from rapine the nocturnal path)
Entwined with boughs of Oak her spiral snakes.”—Tighe.
Like the Greeks and Romans, the Scandinavians, in their mythology, traced the origin of mankind from either the Ash or the Oak. By the Teutons and Celts the Oak was invested with a mystical sacred character, and it was connected with the worship of their god Teutates. Among the German people, who consecrated the Oak to the god Thunar, the cultus of the sacred tree lingered for a long time, even after Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, at Geismar, on the Weser, had caused the Oak consecrated to the god of thunder to be uprooted. After the establishment of Christianity, the Oak was long supposed to be the abiding-place of the terrible Northern god, and was, consequently, regarded with superstitious awe. Bishop Otho, of Bamberg, in the year 1128, found at Stettin pagan temples, situate near an Oak and a fountain, which had been objects of worship, and were still regarded with superstitious awe, as being consecrated to a god. As the good bishop could not induce the people to cut down these sacred Oaks, he persuaded them that they were inhabited by evil spirits and demons; and, in course of time, the peoplewho before had prostrated themselves before the trees, shunned them in superstitious dread and terror.
The ancient Britons dedicated the Oak to Taranis, their god of thunder; and the Celts, under the form of an Oak, are by some authorities stated to have worshipped Baal, the god of fire. On the occasion of anauto-da-fé, we are told that fagots of “grey” Oak were always selected. The festival of Baal was kept at Yule (Christmas); and on the anniversary, the Druids are said to have ordained that every fire should be extinguished, and then re-lighted with the sacred fire, which, in their sacerdotal character, they always kept burning. In this rite, it is supposed, may be traced the origin of the Yule-log, the kindling of which, at Christmas-time, is still kept up in England, though in this country the log is often of Ash. Among the Germans, Czechs, Serbs, and Italians, however, the Yule-log is always of Oak.
The Mistletoe which grew on an Oak was regarded by the Druids as the most holy; it was beneath the shade of venerated Oaks that they performed their sacred rites; and when they offered up human sacrifices, the victims, in grim mockery, were crowned with Oak-leaves. The baskets in which they were immolated were composed of Oaken twigs, and the brands with which the sacrificial fires were kindled were cut from Oak-trees. The priests scattered branches of the Oak upon the altars, and after the sacrifice fresh Oak-leaves were cast upon the blood-stained stones.
Alluding to the human sacrifices which polluted the recesses of the Druidic groves of Oak, and caused them to be regarded with shuddering terror, Tighe says:—
“Such groves in night terrific wrapt the godsOf Gaul, where fostering nymph dared never tread,Nor sylvan deity; no bird here couchedHer wing; no beast here slumbered in his lair;No zephyr woke the silence of the boughs;Alone at eve the trembling Druid soughtThe mystic oracle; alone entrancedAmid the sanctuary stood, whose foulExpanse in horrors veiled a dreaded god.”
“Such groves in night terrific wrapt the godsOf Gaul, where fostering nymph dared never tread,Nor sylvan deity; no bird here couchedHer wing; no beast here slumbered in his lair;No zephyr woke the silence of the boughs;Alone at eve the trembling Druid soughtThe mystic oracle; alone entrancedAmid the sanctuary stood, whose foulExpanse in horrors veiled a dreaded god.”
“Such groves in night terrific wrapt the gods
Of Gaul, where fostering nymph dared never tread,
Nor sylvan deity; no bird here couched
Her wing; no beast here slumbered in his lair;
No zephyr woke the silence of the boughs;
Alone at eve the trembling Druid sought
The mystic oracle; alone entranced
Amid the sanctuary stood, whose foul
Expanse in horrors veiled a dreaded god.”
When an Oak died, the Druids stripped off its bark, and shaped it reverently into the form of a pillar, a pyramid, or a cross, and still continued to worship it as an emblem of their god. In Anglesea, the ancient Mona, are still dug up great trunks of Oak, relics of the Druids’ holy groves. The central Oak was the peculiar object of veneration. The poet relates how men of old,
“When through the woods the Northern blastHowled harsh appeased with horrid cries and bloodThe Scythian Taranis; or bowed aroundThe central Oak of Mona’s dismal shade.”
“When through the woods the Northern blastHowled harsh appeased with horrid cries and bloodThe Scythian Taranis; or bowed aroundThe central Oak of Mona’s dismal shade.”
“When through the woods the Northern blast
Howled harsh appeased with horrid cries and blood
The Scythian Taranis; or bowed around
The central Oak of Mona’s dismal shade.”
The Druids it is believed revered the form of the cross. It is stated to have been their custom to seek studiously for a large and handsome Oak-tree, growing up with two principal arms in theform of a cross beside the main stem. If the two horizontal arms were not sufficiently adapted to the figure, they fastened a crossbeam to it. Then they consecrated it by cutting upon the right branch the wordHesus, upon the middle stemTaranis, and upon the left branchBelenus, and over them the wordThau. The tree thus inscribed was deemed peculiarly sacred, and to it they directed their faces when offering prayer.
It was beneath the shade of the Oak that Druidic criminal trials were held—the judge and jury being seated under the branches, and the prisoner placed in a circle traced by the wand of the chief Druid. With the Saxons, the Oak retained its sacred character, and their national meetings were held beneath its shelter. It was below the Oaks of Dartmoor that they held their conference with the Britons, whose land they were invading.
In Great Britain, the Oak remained an object of veneration long after the establishment of Christianity. It was under an aged Oak that St. Brigid of Ireland established her retreat for holy women, whence called Kildara, or cell of the Oak. Here had been burning for many centuries the sacred fire of the Druids, but by the piety of St. Brigid the light of Christianity was henceforth to emit its flame from beneath
“The Oak of St. Bride, which demon nor Dane,Nor Saxon, nor Dutchman could rend from her fane.”
“The Oak of St. Bride, which demon nor Dane,Nor Saxon, nor Dutchman could rend from her fane.”
“The Oak of St. Bride, which demon nor Dane,
Nor Saxon, nor Dutchman could rend from her fane.”
Many of the Druidical sacred Oaks were utilised by the early preachers of the Christian faith, who from beneath their boughs preached the gospel of Christ to the pagan inhabitants. Hence these trees became noted throughout the country as Gospel Oaks, a name which still appertains to many ancient trees existing at the present time in England. It is right to say, however, that other authorities consider the origin of the name to have been the custom of reading the Gospel of the day at a certain tree, when the priest went round the fields to bless the crops.
The Sclavonians worshipped Oaks, which they enclosed in a consecrated court. This spot was the sanctuary of all the country, and had its priest, its festivals, and its sacrifices. The inner sanctuary, where grew the sacred Oak, was reserved especially for the priests, sacrificers, and people in danger of their life, who had sought of the priests an asylum. It is said that the ancient Russians, upon arriving at the Isle of St. George, offered up sacrifices beneath a great Oak, before which the people and priests chanted aTe Deum. After the ceremony, the priest distributed the branches of the Oak among the people.
It is curious to note how the old Grecian belief in the sacred and supernatural character of the Oak has lingered in Italy. Prof. de Gubernatis tells us that in the Campagna of Rome, about seventeen years ago, a young shepherdess, during a storm, sought shelter under an Oak, and prayed to the Madonna. Whilst sheprayed, a gracious lady appeared before her, and, thanks to her intercession, no rain fell on the Oak, and the girl was enabled to reach home without being wetted by a single drop. Everyone saw it was a miracle; the curé examined her, and from his representations the young girl was received into a convent at Rome, where she probably is preparing herself for canonisation. Under similar circumstances, two centuries ago, a Tuscan shepherdess, Giovanna of Signa, was canonised. In the district of Signa, near Ginestra, the villagers still show a sacred Oak, which people kneel to and adore. The story runs that one day the shepherdess Giovanna, surprised by a storm, called around her the shepherds and their flocks, and stuck her shepherdess’s crook into the ground; when, wondrous to relate, at the same instant shot forth an Oak, which sheltered beneath its branches shepherds and sheep. No one was wetted by the rain. On account of this miracle, Giovanna was made a saint, and near the sacred Oak a little chapel was erected to the Virgin. Strange to say, the tree throws down anyone climbing into its branches to cut boughs; but people are permitted to pluck sprays, which are believed to guard themselves and their houses from the effects of storms, provided that the names of Jesus and Mary are invoked with certain ceremonies.
Among the Bolognese, who inhabit a district once occupied by the Celts, and consequently Druidic, the sacred character of Oak-trees was long acknowledged. In the fourteenth century, there stood in Bologna an ancient Oak, which was regarded with the greatest reverence, and beneath its boughs all important gatherings of the people took place. In their religious processions the children still carry garlands of the Oak and Olive. In the country districts, images of the Virgin are often suspended from Oak-trees, and these effigies are called after the trees, the little Madonnas of the Oak. A legend of Bologna relates that in a chapel an image of the Virgin had long been neglected, and overlooked, till, one day, a pious shepherd took it away, and placed it in the trunk of a Cork-tree (a species of Oak, theQuercus Suber). Henceforth he visited it daily, and to honour the Virgin played on the flute. The thief having been denounced, the shepherd was seized and condemned to death; but during the night, through the intervention of the Madonna, the statue and the shepherd both returned to their favourite tree, and notwithstanding subsequent efforts to remove them, they again took up their place beneath its boughs. Then the people recognised a miracle performed by the Virgin, and falling on their knees before the statue in the Oak, they asked pardon of the shepherd.
The time-honoured belief in the sacred and supernatural attributes of the Oak have doubtless caused it to be regarded, even at the present day, as a tree which would vicariously bear the diseases of men. Thus, in England, Cross Oaks, which were trees planted at the juncture of cross-roads, were formerly resorted to by peoplesuffering from ague, for the purpose of transferring to them their malady: this they did by pegging a lock of their hair into one of the trees, and then, by a sudden wrench, transferring the lock from their heads to the Oak, and with the lock the ague.
In Germany, there still exists a custom of creeping through an Oak cleft to cure hernia and other disorders. There was, near Wittstock, in Altmark, a bushy Oak, the branches of which had grown together again at some distance from the stem, leaving open spaces between them. Whoever crept through these spaces was freed from his malady, whatever it might be, and many crutches lay about, which had been thrown away by visitors to the tree whose ailments had been cured. In Russia, a similar custom is extant, the favourite tree there being theQuercus Ilex.
A belief that Oak-trees were the homes of Dryads, Hamadryads, spirits, elves, and fairies has existed since the days of the ancient Greeks. Pindar speaks of a Hamadryad as “doomed to a term of existence coeval with the Oak.” Callimachus represents Melia “deeply sighing for her coeval Oak,” and tells us that
“The Dryads laugh when vernal showers return;O’er Autumn’s fading leaves the Dryads mourn.”
“The Dryads laugh when vernal showers return;O’er Autumn’s fading leaves the Dryads mourn.”
“The Dryads laugh when vernal showers return;
O’er Autumn’s fading leaves the Dryads mourn.”
Preston, in his translation of Apollonius, makes a Hamadryad plead in vain for her existence, threatened by the destruction of the Oak in which she dwelt:—
“As in the mountain, with repeated stroke,The churlish fellow felled the stubborn Oak;Impious, he scorned the Hamadryad’s prayer,And smote the tree coeval with the fair.With streaming tears she pleads a suppliant strainTo that unfeeling churl, but pleads in vain.‘Oh, rustic, stay, nor wound the hallowed rind,For ages with that stem I live entwined.’”
“As in the mountain, with repeated stroke,The churlish fellow felled the stubborn Oak;Impious, he scorned the Hamadryad’s prayer,And smote the tree coeval with the fair.With streaming tears she pleads a suppliant strainTo that unfeeling churl, but pleads in vain.‘Oh, rustic, stay, nor wound the hallowed rind,For ages with that stem I live entwined.’”
“As in the mountain, with repeated stroke,
The churlish fellow felled the stubborn Oak;
Impious, he scorned the Hamadryad’s prayer,
And smote the tree coeval with the fair.
With streaming tears she pleads a suppliant strain
To that unfeeling churl, but pleads in vain.
‘Oh, rustic, stay, nor wound the hallowed rind,
For ages with that stem I live entwined.’”
In Germany, the holes in the trunks of Oaks are thought to be utilised by the elves inhabiting the trees as means of entry and exit; in our own country, Oaks have always been reputed as the trees in whose boughs elves delighted to find shelter. The fairies, too, were fond of dancing around Oaks: thus Tighe, apostrophising the monarch of the forest, exclaims:—
“The fairies from their nightly haunt,In copse, or dell, or round the trunk reveredOf Herne’s moon-silvered Oak, shall chase awayEach fog, each blight, and dedicate to peaceThy classic shade.”
“The fairies from their nightly haunt,In copse, or dell, or round the trunk reveredOf Herne’s moon-silvered Oak, shall chase awayEach fog, each blight, and dedicate to peaceThy classic shade.”
“The fairies from their nightly haunt,
In copse, or dell, or round the trunk revered
Of Herne’s moon-silvered Oak, shall chase away
Each fog, each blight, and dedicate to peace
Thy classic shade.”
In these lines allusion is made to a famous tree in Windsor Forest, one of a long series of celebrated Oaks—“lusty trees,” which, as Robert Turner writes, England “did once so flourish with, that it was called Druina by some.” One of these, known as the Cadenham Oak, in the New Forest, is said, like the Glastonbury Thorn, to mark the birthday of our Lord by budding on Christmas Day. Another, renowned as the Royal Oak, is reverencedas having been the hiding-place of Charles II., after the battle of Worcester. In this tree, not far from Boscobel House, the king, and his companion, Col. Careless, or Carless, resorted when they thought it no longer safe to remain in the house—the family giving them victuals on a Nut-hook. From this tree Charles gathered some Acorns, and set them himself in St. James’s Park:—