Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/303



N Spain there are many plant and animal superstitions of a religious character, to doubt which would be considered by the peasantry nothing short of heresy. They are frequently embodied in those characteristic popular songs which are so seldom off the lips of a Spanish peasant, and many of which are of considerable poetical merit.

Thus Christ's death is mourned by four linnets and a nightingale:

The aspen trembles because the cross was made from its wood. The willow is a tree of ill-omen because Judas hanged himself on it. The rosemary is held in special veneration. It used to be, the legend has it, but a poor, humble plant, till one day the Virgin Mary was washing and hung up the clothes of the Infant Jesus upon it to dry. Since then it became evergreen and fragrant, all the instruments of the Passion can be seen in its flower, and it puts forth fresh blossoms every Friday, "as if to embalm His holy body." If a house be fumigated with it the night of the Nativity no harm will come to that house the whole year through. Perhaps the veneration of rosemary is intensified from a confusion of its name, romero (rosmarinus), with the word for pilgrim, which is spelt and pronounced the same way.

According to the Spanish tradition it was the swallow that pulled out a spine from the crown of thorns. The peasants believe in a mysterious herb called pito-real, which is invisible to men, and known to the swallows only. It has the power of restoring the eyesight, and is applied by them to their young if their eyes have been plucked out. Pito-real also possesses the property of breaking iron when it comes in contact with it; and, if the vine-dresser should find his pruning-hook suddenly break in his hands without any tangible cause, he at once ascribes the accident to its having come in contact with this