Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/571

Rh xxii. p. 960) quotes a vast number of authorities on this old myth, and gives his opinion that it was absurd. Yet in 1677 Sir Robert Moray read before the Royal Society "A Relation concerning Barnacles," and this was published in the Philosophical Transactions, Jan. and Feb. 1677-8.

The Folk-lore in Parkinson's "Theatrum Botanicium." The folk-lore to be found in Parkinson is so interesting that it is impossible to deal with it in a short space. Of herbs used as amulets one notes mistletoe to be hung round children's necks as a protection against witchcraft; bearsfoot to be put in a hole cut in the dewlap of an ox to cure cough; soap made from glasswort to be spread on "thick coarse brown paper cut into the forme of their shooe soles" for those that are "casually taken speechless"; "plantain roots for ague; loosestrife to be fastened to the yokes to take away strife between oxen; periwinkle wreathed round the legs against cramp," etc. We find also instances of the old belief in the efficacy of herbs to promote happiness and to destroy melancholy (see oak galls, vipers, bugloss, borage, etc.); herbs to be used against witchcraft, notably Herb true love, and one—the Indian Spanish counterpoison—which "taken in white wine resisteth witchery that is used in such drinkes that are given to produce love." Herbs to be used also against forgetfulness (see sage and asarabacca), and curious old beliefs connected with bee-lore (balm which is beneficial to them and woad, of which he says, "it hath been observed that Bees have dyed of as it were of a Flix that have tasted hereof "). Also some curious old gardening beliefs not found in other herbals but very frequently in contemporary books on gardening, husbandry, etc., notably the writings of Thomas Hill. (For gardening beliefs see Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum; see especially under gourds, great spurge, asparagus and elder.) The most interesting piece of folk-lore to be found in Parkinson is the myth of the vegetable lamb of Tartary. This "lamb,"