Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium).
Peniriall is to print your love,
So deep within my heart,
That when you look this nosegay on
My pain you may impart,
And when that you have read the same,
Consider wel my woe.
Think ye then how to recompense
Even him that loves you so.
A Handful of Pleasant Delites.
C. Robinson.
Then balm and mint helps to make up
My chapter, and for trial,
Costmary, that so likes the cup,
And next it, pennyroyal.
Muses’ Elysium.
Lavender, Corn-rose, Pennyroyal sate,
And that which cats[47] esteem so delicate
After a while slow-pac’d with much ado,
Ground pine, with her short legs, crept hither too.
Of Plants, book ii.—Cowley.
In France, Italy, and Spain, the children make a crêche de noël at Christmas time; that is, they make a shed with stones and moss, and surround it with evergreens powdered with flour and cotton-wool, to make a little landscape. In and about this shed are placed the gens de la crêche; little earthen figures representing the Holy Family, and the Three Kings with their camels, and the Shepherds with their flocks, the sheep being disposed among the miniature rocks and bushes. On Christmas eve, or else sometimes on Twelfth Night, I think, these are saluted with the music of pipes and carol singing. De Gubernatis says that the children of Sicily always put pennyroyal amongst the green things in their crêches, and believe that exactly at midnight it bursts into flower for Christmas Day.
Other names for it are Pulioll Royal and Pudding-grasse, “and in the west parts, as about Exeter, Organs.” It is still called organs in the “West parts,” and organ-tea used to be a favourite drink to take out to the harvesters. In Italy pennyroyal is a protection against the Evil Eye, and in Sicily, they tie it to the branches of the fig-tree, thinking that this will prevent the figs falling before they are ripe. It is there also offered to husbands and wives who are in the habit of “falling out” with each other. “The Ancients said that it causeth Sheepe and Goates to bleate when they are eating of it.” To produce all those wonderful effects, it must have a great deal of magic about it. Gerarde says it grows “in the Common neare London, called Miles End, about the holes and ponds thereof in sundry places, from whence poore women bring plentie to sell in London markets.” Would that it could be found at “Miles End” now! He gives in passing a sidelight on the comfort in travelling, in the good old days: “If you have when you are at the sea Penny Royal in great quantitie, drie and cast it into corrupt water, it helpeth it much, neither will it hurt them that drinke thereof.” This inevitable state of things, in making a voyage, is faced with philosophic calm. “A Garland of Pennie Royal made and worne on the head is good against headache and giddiness.”
[47] Cat-mint.