[103] Gerarde.
“Thus we are told, that the Vertue of the Cophee was discover’d by marking what the Goats so greedily brutted upon. So Æsculapius is said to have restor’d dismember’d Hippolitus by applying some simples, he observ’d a Serpent to have us’d another dead Serpent.” The last instance sounds mythical! But goats have really more than once led mankind to some useful bit of knowledge. There is a Chilian plant, Boldo, a tincture of the leaves of which are frequently administered in France for hepatic complaints, and this is the history of the discovery of its virtues. “The goats in Chili had been for many years subject to enlargement of the liver, and the owners of the flocks had begun to despair of them as a source of revenue, until it was observed that certain flocks were exempt from the complaint, whilst others in adjacent districts continued subject to it. It was ultimately discovered that the goats browsing in fields where Boldo grew were never a prey to hepatic diseases, and the herb became gradually known and used, first by South American and then by French druggists.” Boldo is little used in England.
Sheep seek Dandelions; and Miss Anne Pratt quotes an agricultural report, describing how some weakly lambs were moved into a field full of Dandelions in flower, and how rapidly the conspicuous blossoms were devoured. Finally, as the flowers grew fewer and fewer, the lambs were seen pushing one another away from the coveted plants, and in this field they speedily gained in health and strength. Valerianella Olitaria is said to be a favourite food of lambs, and so gains its name of Lambs’ Lettuce. Shepherds and flocks have always been favourite subjects for poetry, and Drayton touches them very prettily:—
When the new wash’d flock from the river side,
Coming as white as January’s snow,
The ram with nose-gays bears his horns in pride,
And no less brave the bell-wether doth go.
Nep or Cat-mint is said to have a great attraction for cats. Of which there is this old rime:—
If you set it, the catts will eate it,
If you sow it, the catts won’t know it.[104]
[104] Coles.
The weasel, with a grand knowledge of counter-poisons, “arms herself with eating of Rue,” before fighting a serpent. Folkard says that in the north of England there is a tradition that when hops were first planted there, nightingales also made their first appearance, and he adds that both have long since disappeared, north of the Humber. In other parts of England there is an idea (quite a false one) that nightingales will only sing where cowslips flourish. The cuckoo is connected with both plants and minerals. In some parts of Germany, Mr Friend writes, the call of the cuckoo is thought to reveal mines, and the cuckoo’s bread, the purple orchis, grows most abundantly where rich veins of metal lie beneath. There is a story about the plantain, a plant with a most interesting legendary history, in which the cuckoo appears. Once the Plantain or Waybread was a maiden, always watching for her absent lover, and at last she was changed into the plant that almost always grows by the road-side. And now every seventh year the plantain becomes a bird, either the Cuckoo or the Cuckoo’s servant, the Dinnick.
The Yellow Rattle is sometimes called Gowk’s Siller, and Gowk may mean either the Cuckoo or a fool, so they may quarrel for it. Johnston seems to think that the siller belongs rather to the fool, for he remarks: “the capsules rattle when in seed... being like the fool unable to conceal its wealth.” The Swallow restored sight to the eyes of her young, when any evil had befallen them, by the help of Celandine. And it was for this reason, says Gerarde, that the flower gained its name, Chelidonium, swallow-herbe, and not because it “first springeth at the coming of the swallows or dieth when they goe away.”... Celsus doth witnesse that it will restore “the sight of the eies of divers young birds... and soonest of all of the sight of the swallow.” The eagle, when he wishes his sight to be particularly keen, rubs his eyes with the wild Lettuce, and the hawk follows his example, but chooses Hawkweed with equal success. Doves and pigeons find that Vervain cures dimness of vision and goldfinches and linnets and some other birds turn to eyebright. “The purple and yellow spots which are upon the flowers of eyebright very much resemble the diseases of the eyes or bloodshot.”[105] There is a very wide belief in a magic plant called Spring-wort or Spring-wurzel of which Folkard gives an interesting description. “Pliny,” he says, “records the superstition concerning it, almost in the same form in which it is now found in Germany. If anyone touches a lock with it, the lock, however strong, must yield. In Switzerland it is carried in the right pocket to render the bearer invulnerable to dagger or bullet; and in the Hartz mountains it is said to reveal treasures. One cannot easily find it oneself, but generally the wood-pecker (according to Pliny also the raven, in Switzerland, the Hoopoe, in the Tyrol, the swallow) will bring it under the following circumstances. When the bird has temporarily left its nest this must be stopped up with wood. The bird then flies away to find the Spring-wurzel and will open the nest by touching it with the root. Meantime a fire or a red cloth must be placed near by, which will so frighten the bird that it will let the magical root fall.” Le petit Albert, to procure Spring-wort suggests tying up a magpie’s nest with new cords, but merely says that she brings une herbe to release her nestlings, without giving its name.
[105] “Adam in Eden,” Coles.