LILY OF THE VALLEY.—In mediæval days, the monks and nuns believed that the Convallaria was the Lily of the Valley mentioned in the Canticles (ii., 17), and the flower alluded to by Christ when he bade his disciples “consider the Lilies of the field.” The Martagon Lily, however (Lilium Chalcedonicum), is now generally considered to be the Lily of Palestine; the Lily of the Valley, or Conval Lily, being quite unknown in the Holy Land.——Lilies of the Valley are called Virgin’s Tears; they are the flowers dedicated to Whitsuntide, but in some parts of England still retain their old name of May Lilies.——There exists in Devon a superstition that it is unlucky to plant a bed of Lilies of the Valley, as the person doing so will probably die in the course of the ensuing twelve months.——In France, Germany, and Holland, these Lilies are called May-flowers.——The blossoms possess a perfume highly medicinal against nervous affections. The water distilled from them was formerly in such great repute that it was kept only in vessels of gold and silver: hence Matthiolus calls it aqua aurea. It was esteemed as a preventive against all infectious distempers. Camerarius recommends an oil made of the flowers as a specific against gout and such-like diseases. His prescription is as follows:—“Have filled a glass with flowers, and being well stopped, set it for a moneth’s space in an ante’s hill, and after being drayned cleare, set it by for use.”——There is a legend in Sussex, that in the forest of St. Leonard, where the hermit-saint once dwelt, fierce encounters took place between the holy man and a dragon which infested the neighbourhood; the result being that the dragon was gradually driven back into the inmost recesses of the forest, and at last disappeared. The scenes of their successive combats are revealed afresh every year, when beds of fragrant Lilies of the Valley spring up wherever the earth was sprinkled by the blood of the warrior saint.——The Conval Lily is under Mercury.
LIME-TREE.—The origin of the Lime-tree, according to Ovid, is to be traced to the metamorphosis of Baucis, the good-hearted wife of an aged shepherd named Philemon. This old couple lived happily and contentedly in a humble cottage in the plains of Phrygia. Here they one day, with rustic hospitality, entertained unknowingly the gods Jupiter and Mercury, who had been refused admittance to the dwellings of their wealthier neighbours. Appreciating their kindness, Jupiter bade them ascend a neighbouring hill, where they saw their neighbours’ dwellings swept away by a flood, but their own hut transformed into a splendid temple, of which the god appointed them the presiding priests. According to their request, they both died at the same hour, and were changed into trees—Baucis into a Lime, and Philemon into an Oak. Ovid thus describes the transformation:—
“Then, when their hour was come, while they relate
These past adventures at the temple gate,
Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen
Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green:
Old Baucis looked where old Philemon stood,
And saw his lengthened arms a sprouting wood;
New roots their fastened feet begin to bind.
Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind.