Part 19 (2/2)
Though it may be thought that an opinion so very absurd could never find credit with people of the meanest understanding, yet I have conversed with some who were much inclined to believe it; so very prevalent is the prodigious and absurd with some part of mankind. Among the more sensible and experienced Tartars, I found they laughed at it as a ridiculous fable.” Blood was said to flow from it when cut or injured, a superst.i.tion which probably originated in the fact that the fresh root when cut yields a tenacious gum like the blood of animals. Dr. Darwin, in his ”Loves of the Plants,” adopts the fable thus:--
”E'en round the pole the flames of love aspire, And icy bosoms feel the sacred fire, Cradled in snow, and fanned by arctic air, s.h.i.+nes, gentle Barometz, the golden hair; Rested in earth, each cloven hoof descends, And round and round her flexile neck she bends.
Crops of the grey coral moss, and h.o.a.ry thyme, Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime, Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam, Or seems to bleat a vegetable lamb.”
Another curious fiction prevalent in olden times was that of the barnacle-tree, to which Sir John Maundeville also alludes:--”In our country were trees that bear a fruit that becomes flying birds; those that fell in the water lived, and those that fell on the earth died, and these be right good for man's meat.” As early as the twelfth century this idea was promulgated by Giraldus Cambrensis in his ”Topographia Hiberniae;” and Gerarde in his ”Herball, or General History of Plants,”
published in the year 1597, narrates the following:--”There are found in the north parts of Scotland, and the isles adjacent, called Orcades, certain trees, whereon do grow small fishes, of a white colour, tending to russet, wherein are contained little living creatures; which sh.e.l.ls, in time of maturity, do open, and out of them grow those little living things which, falling into the water, do become fowls, whom we call barnacles, in the north of England brant-geese, and in Lancas.h.i.+re tree-geese; but the others that do fall upon the land perish, and do come to nothing.” But, like many other popular fictions, this notion was founded on truth, and probably originated in mistaking the fleshy peduncle of the barnacle (_Lepas a.n.a.lifera_) for the neck of a goose, the sh.e.l.l for its head, and the tentacula for a tuft of feather. There were many versions of this eccentric myth, and according to one modification given by Boece, the oldest Scottish historian, these barnacle-geese are first produced in the form of worms in old trees, and further adds that such a tree was cast on sh.o.r.e in the year 1480, when there appeared, on its being sawn asunder, a mult.i.tude of worms, ”throwing themselves out of sundry holes and pores of the tree; some of them were nude, as they were new shapen; some had both head, feet, and wings, but they had no feathers; some of them were perfect shapen fowls.
At last, the people having this tree each day in more admiration, brought it to the kirk of St. Andrew's, beside the town of Tyre, where it yet remains to our day.”
Du Bartas thus describes the various transformations of this bird:--
”So, slowe Bootes underneath him sees, In th' ycie iles, those goslings hatcht of trees; Whose fruitful leaves, falling into the water, Are turn'd, they say, to living fowls soon after.
So, rotten sides of broken s.h.i.+ps do change To barnacles; O transformation change, 'Twas first a green tree, then a gallant hull, Lately a mushroom, now a flying gull.”
Meyer wrote a treatise on this strange ”bird without father or mother,”
and Sir Robert Murray, in the ”Philosophical Transactions,” says that, ”these sh.e.l.ls are hung at the tree by a neck, longer than the sh.e.l.l, of a filmy substance, round and hollow and creased, not unlike the windpipe of a chicken, spreading out broadest where it is fastened to the tree, from which it seems to draw and convey the matter which serves for the growth and vegetation of the sh.e.l.l and the little bird within it. In every sh.e.l.l that I opened,” he adds, ”I found a perfect sea-fowl; the little bill like that of a goose, the eyes marked; the head, neck, breast, wing, tail, and feet formed; the feathers everywhere perfectly shaped, and the feet like those of other water-fowl.” The Chinese have a tradition of certain trees, the leaves of which were finally changed into birds.
With this story may be compared that of the oyster-bearing tree, which Bishop Fleetwood describes in his ”Curiosities of Agriculture and Gardening,” written in the year 1707. The oysters as seen, he says, by the Dominican Du Tertre, at Guadaloupe, grew on the branches of trees, and, ”are not larger than the little English oysters, that is to say, about the size of a crown-piece. They stick to the branches that hang in the water of a tree called Paretuvier. No doubt the seed of the oysters, which is shed in the tree when they sp.a.w.n, cleaves to those branches, so that the oysters form themselves there, and grow bigger in process of time, and by their weight bend down the branches into the sea, and then are refreshed twice a day by the flux and reflux of it.” Kircher speaks of a tree in Chili, the leaves of which brought forth a certain kind of worm, which eventually became changed into serpents; and describes a plant which grew in the Molucca Islands, nicknamed ”catopa,” on account of its leaves when falling off being transformed into b.u.t.terflies.
Among some of the many other equally wonderful plants may be mentioned the ”stony wood,” which is thus described by Gerarde:--”Being at Rugby, about such time as our fantastic people did with great concourse and mult.i.tudes repair and run headlong unto the sacred wells of Newnam Regis, in the edge of Warwicks.h.i.+re, as unto the Waters of Life, which could cure all diseases.” He visited these healing-wells, where he, ”found growing over the same a fair ash-tree, whose boughs did hang over the spring of water, whereof some that were seare and rotten, and some that of purpose were broken off, fell into the water and were all turned into stone. Of these, boughs, or parts of the tree, I brought into London, which, when I had broken into pieces, therein might be seen that the pith and all the rest was turned into stones, still remaining the same shape and fas.h.i.+on that they were of before they were in the water.”
Similarly, Sir John Maundeville notices the ”Dead Sea fruit”--fruit found on the apple-trees near the Dead Sea. To quote his own words:-- ”There be full fair apples, and fair of colour to behold; but whoso breaketh them or cutteth them in two, he shall find within them coals and cinders, in token that by the wrath of G.o.d, the city and the land were burnt and sunken into h.e.l.l.” Speaking of the many legendary tales connected with the apple, may be mentioned the golden apples which Hera received at her marriage with Zeus, and placed under the guardians.h.i.+p of the dragon Ladon, in the garden of the Hesperides. The northern Iduna kept guarded the sacred apples which, by a touch, restored the aged G.o.ds to youth; and according to Sir J. Maundeville, the apples of Pyban fed the pigmies with their smell only. This reminds us of the singing apple in the fairy romance, which would persuade by its smell alone, and enable the possessor to write poetry or prose, and to display the most accomplished wit; and of the singing tree in the ”Arabian Nights,” each leaf of which was musical, all the leaves joining together in a delightful harmony.
But peculiarities of this kind are very varied, and form an extensive section in ”Plant-lore;”--very many curious examples being found in old travels, and related with every semblance of truth. In some instances trees have obtained a fabulous character from being connected with certain events. Thus there was the ”bleeding tree.”[1] It appears that one of the indictments laid to the charge of the Marquis of Argyll was this:--”That a tree on which thirty-six of his enemies were hanged was immediately blasted, and when hewn down, a copious stream of blood ran from it, saturating the earth, and that blood for several years was emitted from the roots.” Then there is the ”poet's tree,” which grows over the tomb of Tan-Sein, a musician at the court of Mohammed Akbar.
Whoever chews a leaf of this tree was long said to be inspired with sweet melody of voice, an allusion to which is made by Moore, in ”Lalla Kookh:”:--”His voice was sweet, as if he had chewed the leaves of that enchanted tree which grows over the tomb of the musician Tan-Sein.”
The rare but occasional occurrence of vegetation in certain trees and shrubs, happening to take place at the period of Christ's birth, gave rise to the belief that such trees threw out their leaves with a holy joy to commemorate that anniversary. An oak of the early budding species for two centuries enjoyed such a notoriety, having been said to shoot forth its leaves on old Christmas Day, no leaf being seen either before or after that day during winter. There was the famous Glas...o...b..ry thorn, and in the same locality a walnut tree was reported never to put forth its leaves before the feast of St. Barnabas, the 11th June. The monkish legend runs thus: Joseph of Arimathaea, after landing at no great distance from Glas...o...b..ry, walked to a hill about a mile from the town.
Being weary he sat down here with his companions, the hill henceforth being nicknamed ”Weary-All-Hill,” locally abbreviated into ”Werral.”
Whilst resting Joseph struck his staff into the ground, which took root, grew, and blossomed every Christmas Day. Previous to the time of Charles I a branch of this famous tree was carried in procession, with much ceremony, at Christmas time, but during the Civil War the tree was cut down.
Many plants, again, as the ”Sesame” of the ”Arabian Nights,” had the power of opening doors and procuring an entrance into caverns and mountain sides--a survival of which we find in the primrose or key-flower of German legend. Similarly, other plants, such as the golden-rod, have been renowned for pointing to hidden springs of water, and revealing treasures of gold and silver. Such fabulous properties have been also a.s.signed to the hazel-branch, popularly designated the divining-rod:--
”Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod, Gather'd with vows and sacrifice, And, borne aloft, will strangely nod The hidden treasure where it lies.”
With plants of the kind we may compare the wonder-working moonwort (_Botrychium lunaria_), which was said to open locks and to unshoe horses that trod on it, a notion which Du Bartas thus mentions in his ”Divine Weekes”--
”Horses that, feeding on the gra.s.sy hills, Tread upon moonwort with their hollow heels, Though lately shod, at night go barefoot home, Their maister musing where their shoes become.
O moonwort! tell me where thou bid'st the smith, Hammer and pinchers, thou unshodd'st them with.
Alas! what lock or iron engine is't, That can thy subtle secret strength resist, Still the best farrier cannot set a shoe So sure, but thou (so shortly) canst undo.”
The blasting-root, known in Germany as spring-wurzel, and by us as spring-wort, possesses similar virtues, for whatever lock is touched by it must yield. It is no easy matter to find this magic plant, but, according to a piece of popular folk-lore, it is obtained by means of the woodp.e.c.k.e.r. When this bird visits its nest, it must have been previously plugged up with wood, to remove which it goes in search of the spring-wort. On holding this before the nest the wood shoots out from the tree as if driven by the most violent force. Meanwhile, a red cloth must be placed near the nest, which will so scare the woodp.e.c.k.e.r that it will let the fabulous root drop. There are several versions of this tradition. According to Pliny the bird is the raven; in Swabia it is the hoopoe, and in Switzerland the swallow. In Russia, there is a plant growing in marshy land, known as the rasir-trava, which when applied to locks causes them to open instantly. In Iceland similar properties are ascribed to the herb-paris, there known as lasa-gra.s.s.
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