And closed in all the greene herbere,
With Sicamour was set and Eglatere.”
But it seems doubtful whether by Eglatere was meant the Yellow Rose (Eglanteria), the Sweetbriar, the Dog Rose, or some other species. According to Gerarde, it was a shrub with a white flower. Shakspeare, Spenser, Shenstone, Sir W. Scott, Keats, and other poets identify Eglantine with Sweetbriar; but Milton mistook it for the Honeysuckle or Woodbine, for he speaks of
“Sweetbriar or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine.”
According to a superstition current in Schleswig, when Satan fell from heaven, he endeavoured, in order to reascend to the celestial regions, to make himself a ladder with the thorns of the Eglantine. God, however, would not permit the Eglantine to grow upwards, but only to extend itself as a bush. Then, out of spite, Satan turned its thorns downwards, pointing towards the earth.——Another legend records that Judas Iscariot hung himself on the Eglantine, and that since then it has been an accursed tree: hence to this day its berries are called Judas beeren (Judas berries).——The five graceful fringed leaflets, which form the special beauty of the Eglantine flower and bud, have given rise to the following rhymed riddle:—
“Of us five brothers at the same time born,
Two from our birthday ever beards have worn;
On other two none ever have appeared,
While the fifth brother wears but half a beard.”