HOP.—The Hop (Humulus Lupulus) is referred to in an old English proverb:—
“Till St. James’s day be come and gone,
There may be Hops and there may be none.”
The cultivated Hop, however, was not brought into England until the reign of Henry VIII., when it was imported from Flanders, as recorded in the distich:—
“Hops and turkeys, mackerel and beer,
Came to England all in one year.”
The Hop-leaf has become in Russia proverbial as the best of leaves. King Vladimir, in 985, when signing a peace with the Bulgars, swore to keep it till stone swam on the water, or Hop-leaves sank to the bottom. It is a very old custom in Russia to cover the head of a bride with Hop-leaves—typifying joy, abundance, and intoxication.——Astrologers place Hops under the rule of Mars.
HOREHOUND.—Horehound (Marrubium) is the Herb which the Egyptians dedicated to their god Horus, and which the priests called the Seed of Horus, or the Bull’s Blood, and the Eye of the Star. Strabo attributed to the plant magical properties as a counter-poison. Horehound is one of the five plants which are stated by the Mishna to be the “bitter herbs” ordered to be taken by the Jews at the Feast of the Passover. An infusion of its leaves has an ancient reputation as being valuable in consumptive cases, coughs, and colds, and, according to Gerarde, “is good for them that have drunke poyson, or that have been bitten of serpents.” It is a herb of Mercury, hot in the second degree and dry in the third.——To dream of Horehound indicates that you will suffer imprisonment.
HORNBEAM.—Gerarde tells us that the Horn Beam (Carpinus Betulus) was so called from its wood having been used to yoke horned cattle, as well by the Romans in olden times as in his own time and country, and growing so hard and tough with age as to be more like horn than wood. Hence it was also called Hardbeam and Yoke-Elm. Evelyn says the tree was called Horse-Beech; and in Essex it is known as the Witch-Hazel.——In the country districts around Valenciennes, there is a pleasant custom on May-day morning, when, over the doorway of their sweethearts, rustic lovers hasten to suspend, as a sign of their devotion, branches of Hornbeam or Birch.
HORSE-CHESNUT.—It has been suggested that the Horse-Chesnut (Æsculus Hippocastanum) derived its name from the resemblance of the cicatrix of its leaf to a horse-shoe, with all its nails evenly placed. The old writers, however, seem to have considered that the Horse-Chesnut was so called from the Nuts being used in Turkey (the country from which we first received the tree) as food for horses touched in the wind. Thus we read in Parkinson’s ‘Paradisus’:—“They are usually in Turkey given to horses in their provender to cure them of coughs, and help them being broken winded.”——Evlia Effendi, a Moslem Dervish, who travelled over a large portion of the Turkish empire in the beginning of the seventeenth century, says: “The Santon Akyazli lived forty years under the shade of a wild Chesnut-tree, close to which he is buried under a leaden-covered cupola. The Chesnuts, which are as big as an egg, are wonderfully useful in the diseases of horses.” Tradition says that this tree sprang from a stick which the saint once thrust in the ground, that he might roast his meat on it.——The Venetians entertain the belief that one of these Nuts carried in the pocket is a sure charm against hemorrhoids.——When Napoleon I. returned to France on March 20th, 1814, a Horse-Chesnut in the Tuileries garden was found to be in full blossom. The Parisians regarded this as an omen of welcome, and in succeeding years hailed with interest the early flowering of the Marronnier du Vingt Mars.——(See also [Chesnut]).