He writes:—
“The sacred mistletoe may have acquired, in the eyes of the Druids, a double portion of its mystic qualities at the solstice in June, and accordingly they may have regularly cut it with solemn ceremony on Midsummer Eve. The conjecture is confirmed when we find it to be still a rule of folklore that the mistletoe should be cut on this day. Further, the peasants of Piedmont and Lombardy still go out on Midsummer-morning to search the oak-leaves for the ‘oil of St. John,’ which is supposed to heal all wounds made with cutting instruments. Originally, perhaps, the ‘oil of St. John’ was simply the mistletoe, or a decoction made from it. For in Holstein the mistletoe, especially oak-mistletoe, is still regarded as a panacea for green wounds; and if, as is alleged, ‘all-healer’ is the name of the plant in the modern Celtic speech of Brittany, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, this can be nothing but a survival of the name by which, as we have seen, the Druids addressed the oak, or rather, perhaps, the mistletoe. At Lacaune, in France, the old Druidical belief in the mistletoe as an antidote to all poisons still survives among the people; they apply the plant to the stomach of the sufferer, or give him a decoction of it to drink.”
If we attempt to collate the different festivals with the vegetation most striking or abundant at each, in different countries naturally possessing different floras, a great variety of plants and trees has to be considered. It is probable that the Rowan-tree was chiefly taken here as the representative of the ash in more southern and eastern lands, and the ash indeed did not always take second rank, especially in the worship connected with wells, as we shall see. Grimm[50] calls the ash “a world tree which links heaven, earth and hell together; of all trees the greatest and holiest.”
In the same way at the later established Vernal Equinox festival, the palm which grows in lower latitudes was replaced here by the willow. Coles, in his Adam in Eden,[51] writes: “The willow blossoms come forth before any leaves appear, and are in their most flourishing state usually before Easter, divers gathering them to deck up their houses on Palm Sunday, and therefore the said flowers are called palme.” Willows are still used to deck churches at this time.
As in the case of the Rowan, the willow (or palm) was a protection against witchcraft; small crosses and palm were carried about in the purses and placed upon doors. These crosses had to be made on Palm Sunday out of the wood used in the church. Sometimes box replaced the willow.
We are driven to the conclusion that practices connected with magic, the precursor of the later “witchcraft,” were associated with the festivals now in question, and that the products of the vegetable world at the different seasons were utilized for these purposes.
The putting on of a special garb by the vegetable world at each season in turn would be one of the first things to be manifested, and the close association of it with the stars and the sun in their yearly course would cause the representatives of it to be worshipped together with them, and it would appear from the records that the astronomer priests did not neglect those magical arts which were practised by man in the early stages of civilisation.
Indeed, these magical practices seem to have taken such firm root that it was difficult to get rid of them even in much later times. Newton[52] writes: “I once knew a foolish cock-brained priest which ministered to a certaine young man the ashes of boxe, being (forsooth) hallowed on Palme Sunday, according to the superstitious order and doctrine of the Romish Church, which ashes he mingled with their unholie holie water using to the same a kind of... exorcisme; which... medicine (as he persuaded the standers by) had vertue to drive away any ague.”
Among the virtues attributed to the May thorn was that of preserving the beauty of those maidens who at daybreak on May morning each year would wash themselves in hawthorn dew. As late as 1515 it was recorded that Catherine of Aragon, accompanied by twenty-five of her ladies, sallied out on May morning for this purpose.