March said to Aperill,
I see three hogs upon a hill;
But lend your first three days to me,
And I'll be bound to gar them dee.
The first it sall be wind an' weet,
The next it sall be snaw an' sleet,
The third it sall be sic a freeze,
Sall gar the birds stick to the trees.
But when the borrowed days were gane,
The three silly hogs came hirplin hame.
Mr. Henderson, in his recent work on the "Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties," says, "Old people presage the weather of the coming season by that of the last three days of March, which they call the 'borrowing days,' and thus rhyme about:
"March borrowed from April
Three days, and they were ill;
The first o' them war wind an' weet,
The next o' them war snaw an' sleet,
The last o' them war wind an' rain,
Which gaed the silly pair ewes come toddling hame."
The mistletoe and the oak were both of sacred, or "lightning" origin amongst the Aryans, and the medicinal, mythical, or magical character yet attributed to the former both by the Teutons and Kelts, had, doubtless, one common origin. Walter Kelly says the mistletoe "possesses, in a high degree, all the virtues proper to botanic lightning, as is implied in its Swiss name, donnerbesen, 'thunderbesom,' and its mode of growth is conformable in all particulars to its exalted mythical character. It is a parasite, and like the asvattha and the rowan, it is everywhere believed to spring from seed deposited by birds on trees. When it was found on the oak, the Druids ascribed its growth directly to the gods; they chose the tree; and the bird was their messenger, perhaps a god in disguise." The mistletoe was supposed to protect the homestead from fire and other disaster; and, like many other mysterious things, it was believed to be potent in matters relating to courtship and matrimony. It is to this sentiment we owe the practice of kissing under the bush formed of holly and mistletoe during the Christmas festivities.
This matrimonial element in the mysticism which attaches to the mistletoe is artistically presented in the Scandinavian mythology. Freyja, the mother of Baldr, had rendered him invulnerable against all things formed out of the then presumed four elements, fire, air, earth, and water. The mistletoe was believed to grow from none of these elements. Another version is that she swore all created things never to hurt this the "whitest" and most loved of all the Æsir; but she overlooked one insignificant branch of the mistletoe, and it was by an arrow fashioned from it that the bright day-god, Baldr, the Scandinavian counterpart of Apollo and Bel, was killed by the blind Hodr or Helder. The gods, however, restored him to life, and dedicated the mistletoe to his mother, who is regarded as the counterpart of the classical Venus. Hence its importance in affairs of love and courtship. It is not improbable that the far-famed dart of Cupid may have some relationship to the mistletoe arrow to which the beautiful Baldr succumbed. In a Vedic incantation, translated by Dr. Kuhn, this death-dealing power of the mistletoe is ascribed to a branch of the asvattha.
The medicinal qualities of the mistletoe were also in high repute. "This healing virtue, which the mistletoe shares with the ash," says Kelly, "is a long-descended tradition, for 'the kustha the embodiment of the soma,' a healing plant of the highest renown among the Southern Aryans, was one of those that grew beneath the heavenly asvattha." This heavenly asvattha is the ficus religiosa, or "world tree," "out of which the immortals shaped the heavens and the earth;" and it is supposed to be the prototype of the yggdrasil, the cloud-tree of the Norsemen, "an ash (Norse askr), the tree out of which the gods formed the first man, who was thence called Askr. The ash was also among the Greeks, an image of the clouds, and the mother of men." The Christmas tree of the Germans, recently imported into this country, no doubt originated in these ancient mythical superstitions.
The wide-spread traditionary belief in this world-overspreading tree is confirmed by a passage in Merlin's celebrated prophecy. The magician says, "After this shall be produced a tree upon the Tower of London, which, having no more than three branches, shall overshadow the surface of the whole island." Of course Merlin is speaking figuratively of the future prospects of Britain, and refers to the domination of London as the metropolitan city of the British empire. Nevertheless, the origin of the mythical language used for this purpose appears to admit of no doubt.
The famous bean-stalk up which the renowned "Jack," of nursery story, climbed till he reached cloud-land, the abode of fairies and giants, is, unquestionably, a remnant of the Scandinavian yggdrasil, or cloud-tree. Beans and peas, as will be hereafter shown, in the Aryan myths, were connected with celestial fire, and with departed spirits. This Gothic skiey realm has likewise its counterpart in the Greek Phæakian domain, or "cloudland geography," as Mr. Cox aptly expresses it.
A certain reverence for both the oak and the ash exists yet in the minds of others better educated than the peasantry of England. The phrase, "Our hearts of oak," may shortly be superseded by "Our iron-clads," but the figure of speech, as applied to the fighting sailor, and not to the craft, will long survive the era of the conversion of the ships. The oak and the ash are weather-prophets at this day. An old rhyme says:—
If the oak's before the ash,
We shall only get a splash;
If the ash precede the oak,
We shall surely get a soak.