1. See Baring-Gerald's "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages."
2. Ingram's "Florica Symbolica," p. 326.
3. Stewart's "Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders."
4. See Ellacombe's "Plant-lore of Shakespeare," p. 319.
CHAPTER XXI.
PLANTS IN FOLK-MEDICINE.
From the earliest times plants have been most extensively used in the cure of disease, although in days of old it was not so much their inherent medicinal properties which brought them into repute as their supposed magical virtues. Oftentimes, in truth, the only merit of a plant lay in the charm formula attached to it, the due utterance of which ensured relief to the patient. Originally there can be no doubt that such verbal forms were prayers, "since dwindled into mystic sentences." [1] Again, before a plant could work its healing powers, due regard had to be paid to the planet under whose influence it was supposed to be; [2] for Aubrey mentions an old belief that if a plant "be not gathered according to the rules of astrology, it hath little or no virtue in it." Hence, in accordance with this notion, we find numerous directions for the cutting and preparing of certain plants for medicinal purposes, a curious list of which occurs in Culpepper's "British Herbal and Family Physician." This old herbalist, who was a strong believer in astrology, tells us that such as are of this way of thinking, and none else, are fit to be physicians. But he was not the only one who had strict views on this matter, as the literature of his day proves—astrology, too, having held a prominent place in most of the gardening books of the same period. Michael Drayton, who has chronicled so many of the credulities of his time, referring to the longevity of antediluvian men, writes:—
"Besides, in medicine, simples had the power
That none need then the planetary hour
To help their workinge, they so juiceful were."
The adder's-tongue, if plucked during the wane of the moon, was a cure for tumours, and there is a Swabian belief that one, "who on Friday of the full moon pulls up the amaranth by the root, and folding it in a white cloth, wears it against his naked breast, will be made bullet-proof." [3] Consumptive patients, in olden times, were three times passed, "Through a circular wreath of woodbine, cut during the increase of the March moon, and let down over the body from head to foot." [4] In France, too, at the present day, the vervain is gathered under the different changes of the moon, with secret incantations, after which it is said to possess remarkable curative properties.
In Cornwall, the club-moss, if properly gathered, is considered "good against all diseases of the eye." The mode of procedure is this:—"On the third day of the moon, when the thin crescent is seen for the first time, show it the knife with which the moss is to be cut, and repeat this formula:—