Russell’s Boke of Nature.
Fat colworts and comforting perseline,
Cold lettuce and refreshing rosmarine.
Muiopotmos.—Spenser.
Parsley has the “curious botanic history that no one can tell what is its native country. Probably the plant has been so altered by cultivation as to have lost all likeness to its original self.”[30] Superstitions connected with it are myriad, and Folkard gives two Greek sayings that are interesting. It was the custom among them to border the garden with parsley and rue, and from this arose an idiom, when any undertaking was talked of, but not begun, “Oh! we are only at the Parsley and Rue.” Parsley was used, too, to strew on graves, and hence came a saying “to be in need of parsley,” signifying to be at death’s door. Mr Friend quotes an English adage that “Fried parsley will bring a man to his saddle and a woman to her grave,” but says that he has heard no reason given for this strange and apparently pointless dictum. Plutarch tells of a panic created in a Greek force, marching against the enemy, by their suddenly meeting some mules laden with parsley, which the soldiers looked upon as an evil omen; and W. Jones, in his “Crowns and Coronations,” says, “Timoleon nearly caused a mutiny in his army because he chose his crown to be of parsley, when his soldiers wished it to be of the pine or pitch tree.” In many parts of England it is considered unlucky, and I quote from a paper read before the Devon and Exeter Gardeners’ Association in 1897. “It is one of the longest seeds to lie in the ground before germinating; it has been said to go to the Devil and back again nine times before it comes up. And many people have a great objection to planting parsley, saying if you do there will sure to be a death in the Family within twelve months.” It is only fair to add that this delightful lapse into folk-lore comes in the midst of most excellent and practical advice for its cultivation. “Quite recently (in 1883) a gentleman, living near Southampton, told his gardener to sow some Parsley seed. The man, however, refused, saying that it would be a bad day’s work to him if ever he brought Parsley seed into the house. He said that he would not mind bringing a plant or two and throwing them down, that his master might pick them up if he chose, but he would not bring them to him for anything.”[31]
The “earliest known, really original work on gardening, written in English,” is, Miss Amherst says, “a treatise in verse,” by Mayster Ion Gardener. It consists of a prologue and eight divisions, and one of these is devoted to “Perselye” alone. The manuscript in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, that she quotes from, was written about 1440, but it is thought that the poem is older. Parsley was “much used in all sortes of meates, both boyled, roasted and fryed, stewed, etc., and being green it serveth to lay upon sundry meates. It is also shred and stopped into powdered beefe.... The roots are put into broth, or boyled or stewed with a legge of Mutton... and are of a very good rellish, but the roots must be young and of the first year’s growth.”[32]
The seeds of parsley were sometimes put into cheese to flavour it, and Timbs (“Things not generally Known”) tells this anecdote: “Charlemagne once ate cheese mixed with parsley seeds at a bishop’s palace, and liked it so much that ever after he had two cases of such cheese sent yearly to Aix-la-Chapelle.”
In the edition of Tusser’s “Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry,” edited by Mavor, it is noted, “Skim-milk cheese, however, might be advantageously mixed with seeds, as is the practice in Holland.” Though not strictly relevant, these lines taken by Mrs Milne-Home (“Stray Leaves from a Border-Garden”) from the family records of the Earls of Marchmont, must find place. They were written by a boy of eight or nine, on the occasion of his elder brother’s birthday.
This day from parsley-bed, I’m sure,
Was dug my elder brother, Moore,
Had Papa dug me up before him,
So many now would not adore him,
But hang it! he’s but onely one
And if he trips off, I’m Sr John.
Horse-radish was treated here as a seasoning, but radish is counted among vegetables proper.
[30] Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare.