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THE FOLK-LORE OF PLANTS
BY
T.F. THISELTON-DYER
1889
PREFACE.
Apart from botanical science, there is perhaps no subject of inquiryconnected with plants of wider interest than that suggested by the studyof folk-lore. This field of research has been largely worked of lateyears, and has obtained considerable popularity in this country, and onthe Continent.
Much has already been written on the folk-lore of plants, a fact whichhas induced me to give, in the present volume, a brief systematicsummary—with a few illustrations in each case—of the many branchesinto which the subject naturally subdivides itself. It is hoped,therefore, that this little work will serve as a useful handbook forthose desirous of gaining some information, in a brief concise form, ofthe folk-lore which, in one form or another, has clustered round thevegetable kingdom.
T.F. THISELTON-DYER.
November 19, 1888.
CONTENTS.
I. PLANT LIFE
II. PRIMITIVE AND SAVAGE NOTIONS RESPECTING PLANTS
III. PLANT WORSHIP
IV. LIGHTNING PLANTS
V. PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT
VI. PLANTS IN DEMONOLOGY
VII. PLANTS IN FAIRY-LORE
VIII. LOVE-CHARMS
IX. DREAM-PLANTS
X. PLANTS AND THE WEATHER
XI. PLANT PROVERBS
XII. PLANTS AND THEIR CEREMONIAL USE
XIII. PLANT NAMES
XIV. PLANT LANGUAGE
XV. FABULOUS PLANTS
XVI. DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES
XVII. PLANTS AND THE CALENDAR
XVIII. CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND GAMES
XIX. SACRED PLANTS
XX. PLANT SUPERSTITIONS
XXI. PLANTS IN FOLK-MEDICINE
XXII. PLANTS AND THEIR LEGENDARY HISTORY
XXIII. MYSTIC PLANTS
CHAPTER I.
PLANT LIFE.
The fact that plants, in common with man and the lower animals, possessthe phenomena of life and death, naturally suggested in primitive timesthe notion of their having a similar kind of existence. In both casesthere is a gradual development which is only reached by certainprogressive stages of growth, a circumstance which was not without itspractical lessons to the early naturalist. This similarity, too, washeld all the more striking when it was observed how the life of plants,like that of the higher organisms, was subject to disease, accident, andother hostile influences, and so liable at any moment to be cut off byan untimely end.[1] On this account a personality was ascribed to theproducts of the vegetable kingdom, survivals of which are still offrequent occurrence at the present day. It was partly this conceptionwhich invested trees with that mystic or sacred character whereby theywere regarded with a superstitious fear which found expression in sundryacts of sacrifice and worship. According to Mr. Tylor,[2] there isreason to believe that, "the doctrine of the spirits of plants lay deepin the intellectual history of South-east Asia, but was in great measuresuperseded under Buddhist influence. The Buddhist books show that in theearly days of their religion it was matter of controversy whether treeshad