Part 29 (1/2)

”Cou' it by the auld wa's, Cou' it where the sun ne'er fa'

Stoo it when the day daws, Cou' the nettle early.”

The juice of fumitory is said to clear the sight, and the kennel-wort was once a popular specific for the king's-evil. As disinfectants, wormwood and rue were much in demand; and hence Tusser says:--

”What savour is better, if physicke be true, For places infected, than wormwood and rue?”

For depression, thyme was recommended, and a Manx preservative against all kinds of infectious diseases is ragwort. The ill.u.s.trations we have given above show in how many ways plants have been in demand as popular curatives. And although an immense amount of superst.i.tion has been interwoven with folk-medicine, there is a certain amount of truth in the many remedies which for centuries have been, with more or less success, employed by the peasantry, both at home and abroad.

Footnotes:

1. See Tylor's ”Primitive Culture,” ii.

2. See Folkard's ”Plant-lore Legends and Lyrics,” p. 164.

3. ”Mystic Trees and Shrubs,” p. 717.

4. Folkard's ”Plant-lore,” p. 379.

5. Hunt's ”Popular Romances of the West of England,” 1871, p. 415

6. Folkard's ”Plant-lore Legends and Lyrics,” p. 216.

7. See Black's ”Folk-medicine,” 1883, p.195.

8. _Quarterly Review_, cxiv. 245.

9. ”Sacred Trees and Flowers,” _Quarterly Review_, cxiv. 244.

10. Folkard's ”Plant Legends,” 364.

11. _Fraser's Magazine_, 1870, p. 591.

12. ”Mystic Trees and Plants;” _Fraser's Magazine_, 1870, p. 708.

13. ”Reliquiae Antiquse,” Wright and Halliwell, i. 195; _Quarterly Review_, 1863, cxiv. 241.

14. Coles, ”The Art of Simpling,” 1656.

15. Anne Pratt's ”Flowering Plants of Great Britain,” iv. 9.

16. Black's ”Folk-medicine,” p. 201.

17. Folkard's ”Plant-Lore Legends and Lyrics,” p. 248.

18. _Fraser's Magazine_, 1870, p. 591.

19. ”Plant-Lore Legends and Lyrics,” p. 349.