"Rowan tree and red thread
Hold the witches a' in dread."
"Ruma" was really a magician, or whisperer, from ru, to murmur, and in olden times runes, or mystical secrets, were carved exclusively on the Mountain Ash tree in Scandinavia and the British Isles.
Crosses made of the twigs, and tied with red thread were sewn by Highlandmen into their clothes. Dame Sludge fastened a piece of the wood into Flibbertigibbet's collar as a protection against Wayland Smith's sorceries.—(Kenilworth). Other folk-names of the tree are Quicken tree, Quick Beam, Wiggen, and Witcher.
The Mountain Ash is botanically a connecting link between the dog rose of our hedges and the apple tree of our orchards. Its flowers exactly resemble apple blossoms, and its thickly-clustered red berries are only small crabs dwarfed by the love of the tree for mountain [352] heights and bleak windy situations. In the harsh cold regions of the north it is only a stunted shrub with leaves split up into many small leaflets, so as to suffer less by any breadth of resistance to the sharp driving blasts of icy winds.
Confusion has been often made between this tree and the Service tree (Sorbus, or Pyrus domestica), which is quite distinct, being more correctly called Servise tree, from Cerevisia, fermented beer. Formerly this Servise, or Checker-tree, was employed for making an intoxicating drink. Virgil says:—
"Et pocula lae
Fermento atque acidis imitantur vitea sorbis."
"With acid juices from the Service Ash,
And humming ale, they make their Lemon Squash."
The fruit of the Service tree (or Witten Pear-tree) resembles a small pear, and is considered in France very useful for dysentery because of its tannin; but this Pyrus domestica is a rare tree in England. Sometimes mistaken for it is the wild Service tree (the Pyrus torminalis), much more common in our south country hedges. Its fruit is threaded on long strings, and carried in procession at village feasts in Northamptonshire, but is worthless. Evelyn says, "Ale and beer brewed from the berries, when ripe, of the true Service tree is an incomparable drink."
MUGWORT and WORMWOOD.
The herb Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), a Composite plant, is frequent about hedgerows and waste ground throughout Britain; and it chiefly merits a place among Herbal Simples because of a special medicinal use in certain female derangements. Its name Mugwort has [353] been attributed to "moughte," a moth, or maggot, this title being given to the plant because Dioscorides commended it for keeping off moths. Its Anglo-Saxon synonym is Wyrmwyrt. Mugwort is named from Artemis the Greek goddess of the moon, and is also called Maidenwort or Motherwort (womb wort), being a plant beneficial to the womb.