Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/567

Rh Folk-lore in the early printed herbals. In the first printed herbals we find the old Anglo-Saxon belief in the efficacy of herbs against the unseen powers of evil in a new phase, namely, that herbs may be used to promote happiness and to make men "merry and joyfull." This, of course, is one of the most conspicuous features of the famous later herbals of Gerard and Parkinson. We find also in these early herbals that the belief in the use of herbs as amulets remains unaltered. Of herbs used as charms in the first printed herbals, see in Banckes' Herbal Artemisia, asterion, hare's lettuce, peony, plantain, vervain. The following belief in connection with vervain is not to be found in any other English herbal. "Thei that beare vervaine upon them they shall have love of great maysters and they shal graūt him his asking if his asking be good and rightfull." For herbs used "to comfort the heart," etc., see wormwood, borage, lang de befe. We come next to The Grete Herball, and here we find again instances of the use of herbs for their effect on the mind, also instances of smoking a patient with the fumes of herbs. (See artemisia, rosemary, southernwood.) It is in the Grete Herball that we find the first avowal of disbelief in the supposed powers of mandrake. The widespread old belief in the efficacy of 'mummy' "bryghte blacke stynkynge and styffe" which grows on dead bodies, is given with the usual gruesome illustration. In Turner's herbal there is singularly little folk-lore beyond that to be found in Banckes and the Grete Herball. One should note, however, that this is the first herbal in which any account is to be found of the old custom of curing disease in cattle by boring a hole in the ear and inserting the herb bearfoot, "then all the mighte and pestilent poison of the disease is brought so into the eare. And whilse the part which is circled aboute dyeth and falleth awaye yt hole beast is saved with the lose of a very smal parte." See also bearfoot in Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum.