There is said to be a certain mysterious connection between certain plants and animals. Thus, swine when affected with the spleen are supposed to resort to the spleen-wort, and according to Coles, in his "Art of Simpling," the ass does likewise, for he tells us that, "if the asse be oppressed with melancholy, he eates of the herbe asplemon or mill-waste, and eases himself of the swelling of the spleen." One of the popular names of the common sow-thistle (Sonchus oleraceus) is hare's-palace, from the shelter it is supposed to afford the hare. According to the "Grete Herbale," "if the hare come under it, he is sure that no beast can touch hym." Topsell also, in his "Natural History," alludes to this superstition:—"When hares are overcome with heat, they eat of an herb called Latuca leporina, that is, hare's-lettuce, hare's-house, hare's-palace; and there is no disease in this beast the cure whereof she does not seek for in this herb."
The hound's-tongue (cynoglossum) has been reputed to have the magical property of preventing dogs barking at a person, if laid beneath the feet; and Gerarde says that wild goats or deer, "when they be wounded with arrows, do shake them out by eating of this plant, and heal their wounds." Bacon in his "Natural History" alludes to another curious idea connected with goats, and says, "There are some tears of trees, which are combed from the beards of goats; for when the goats bite and crop them, especially in the morning, the dew being on, the tear cometh forth, and hangeth upon their beards; of this sort is some kind of laudanum." The columbine was once known as Herba leonis, from a belief that it was the lion's favourite plant, and it is said that when bears were half-starved by hybernating—having remained for days without food—they were suddenly restored by eating the arum. There is a curious tradition in Piedmont, that if a hare be sprinkled with the juice of henbane, all the hares in the neighbourhood will run away as if scared by some invisible power.
Gerarde also alludes to an old belief that cats, "Are much delighted with catmint, for the smell of it is so pleasant unto them, that they rub themselves upon it, and swallow or tumble in it, and also feed on the branches very greedily." And according to an old proverb they have a liking for the plant maram:—
"If you set it, the cats will eat it;
If you sow it, the cats won't know it."
Equally fond, too, are cats of valerian, being said to dig up the roots and gnaw them to pieces, an allusion to which occurs in Topsell's "Four-footed Beasts" (1658-81):—"The root of the herb valerian (commonly called Phu) is very like to the eye of a cat, and wheresoever it groweth, if cats come thereunto they instantly dig it up for the love thereof, as I myself have seen in mine own garden, for it smelleth moreover like a cat."
Then there is the moonwort, famous for drawing the nails out of horses' shoes, and hence known by the rustic name of "unshoe the horse;" while the mouse-ear was credited with preventing the horses being hurt when shod.
We have already alluded to the superstitions relating to birds and plants, but may mention another relating to the celandine. One of the well-known names of this plant is swallow-wort, so termed, says Gerarde, not, "because it first springeth at the coming in of the swallows, or dieth when they go away, for it may be found all the year, but because some hold opinion that with this herbe the darns restore eyesight to their young ones, when their eye be put out." Coles strengthens the evidence in favour of this odd notion by adding: "It is known to such as have skill of nature, what wonderful care she hath of the smallest creatures, giving to them a knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if haply diseases annoy them. The swallow cureth her dim eyes with celandine; the wesell knoweth well the virtue of herb-grace; the dove the verven; the dogge dischargeth his mawe with a kind of grasse," &c.
In Italy cumin is given to pigeons for the purpose of taming them, and a curious superstition is that of the "divining-rod," with "its versatile sensibility to water, ore, treasure and thieves," and one whose history is apparently as remote as it is widespread. Francis Lenormant, in his "Chaldean Magic," mentions the divining-rods used by the Magi, wherewith they foretold the future by throwing little sticks of tamarisk-wood, and adds that divination by wands was known and practised in Babylon, "and that this was even the most ancient mode of divination used in the time of the Accadians." Among the Hindus, even in the Vedic period, magic wands were in use, and the practice still survives in China, where the peach-tree is in demand. Tracing its antecedent history in this country, it appears that the Druids were in the habit of cutting their divining-rods from the apple-tree; and various notices of this once popular fallacy occur from time to time, in the literature of bygone years.
The hazel was formerly famous for its powers of discernment, and it is still held in repute by the Italians. Occasionally, too, as already noticed, the divining-rod was employed for the purpose of detecting the locality of water, as is still the case in Wiltshire. An interesting case was quoted some years ago in the Quarterly Review (xxii. 273). A certain Lady N——is here stated to have convinced Dr. Hutton of her possession of this remarkable gift, and by means of it to have indicated to him the existence of a spring of water in one of his fields adjoining the Woolwich College, which, in consequence of the discovery, he was enabled to sell to the college at a higher price. This power Lady N——repeatedly exhibited before credible witnesses, and the Quarterly Review of that day considered the fact indisputable. The divining-rod has long been in repute among Cornish miners, and Pryce, in his "Mineralogia Cornubiensis," says that many mines have been discovered by this means; but, after giving a minute account of cutting, tying, and using it, he rejects it, because, "Cornwall is so plentifully stored with tin and copper lodes, that some accident every week discovers to us a fresh vein."
Billingsley, in his "Agricultural Survey of the County of Cornwall," published in the year 1797, speaks of the belief of the Mendip miners in the efficacy of the mystic rod:—"The general method of discovering the situation and direction of those seams of ore (which lie at various depths, from five to twenty fathoms, in a chasm between two inches of solid rock) is by the help of the divining-rod, vulgarly called josing; and a variety of strong testimonies are adduced in supporting this doctrine. So confident are the common miners of the efficacy, that they scarcely ever sink a shaft but by its direction; and those who are dexterous in the use of it, will mark on the surface the course and breadth of the vein; and after that, with the assistance of the rod, will follow the same course twenty times following blindfolded." Anecdotes of the kind are very numerous, for there are few subjects in folk-lore concerning which more has been written than on the divining-rod, one of the most exhaustive being that of Mr. Baring-Gould in his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages." The literature, too, of the past is rich in allusions to this piece of superstition, and Swift in his "Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod" (1710) thus refers to it:—