Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 2 1884.djvu/155

Rh from the all-healing qualities which it shares with "blessed betony" (Stachys betonica)—

An extraordinary number of virtues are attributed to it in one of the First-English MSS. translated by the late Rev. Oswald Cockayne: it is remarked, "it is good, whether for the man's soul or for his body."

"Holy Vervain" (Verbena sacra) the hermit regarded as a specific for megrim or aching of one side of the head, if the sufferer bound it round his head as a coronal. It was also efficacious in cases of witchcraft, and so was "wonder-working dill" (Anethrum graveolens),

Moly (Allium moly), called by Gerarde, sorcerer's garlic, lunary (Lunaria biennis, or Botrychium lunaria), and nightshade (Atropa belladonna), were likewise valuable to produce enchantments, of which I shall have more to say presently. The effect of henbane (Hyoscyamus niger), poppy and hemlock (Conium maculatum), in "producing deadly sleeping," was not unknown to Clarinax. These he did—

his cautious nature standing in the stead of a Sale of Poisons Act. Garlic (Allium sativum) by the way is called "the poor man's Mithridate," or preservative against poison, in the twentieth Song of Polyolbion.

Adder's tongue (Ophioglossum vulgatum) was created "its own like to cure": it was for the benefit of those "with newts, or snakes, or adders stung." Probably there is no belief which is more firmly held by country-folk than that here subscribed to by Drayton, that newts are poisonous. I well remember being awe-stricken as a child on being told that a woman had her arm "venomed" by a newt, although she never touched the reptile with anything more sensitive than the head of a mop, the stick, as far as it was given to me to understand the story, having acted as a conductor of the subtle bale. The Rev. J. G. Wood, in Common Objects of the Country, gives some amus-