ST. JOHN'S-WORT FAMILY 



wiles of evil spirits and the power of witchcraft; 

 its presence averted the lightning. It seems to have 

 been considered in the Middle Ages a cure-all and a 

 save-all; and the interesting question arises, why? 

 There is an answer. On the longest day of the year, 

 the peoples of northern Europe from immemorial 

 time held the great festival of Balder, the beloved — 

 Balder, the god of the summer sunshine. On the 

 24th of June the church commemorates the mission 

 and death of John the Baptist. The missionary 

 priests from Rome christianizing the wild northern 

 peoples found their new converts strongly attached 

 to the old feasts and ceremonies. Rather than part 

 with these they preferred to part with their new re- 

 ligion, consequently the missionaries permitted the old 

 feasts to continue but gave them different names and 

 newer meanings, which may or may not have been 

 imderstood by their wild converts. And so it came 

 about the two feasts were blended into one, and in 

 northern Europe, Germany, and England, St. John's 

 or midsummer day is still celebrated by customs 

 which have been traced back to the old Saxon feast 

 of the sun. The flowers once sacred to Balder are 

 either yellow or white with sun-shaped disks and 

 flaring rays. The Daisy was one, St. John's-Wort 

 with its many stamens typifying the sun's rays was 

 another — these flowers of Balder are now the flowers 

 of St. John. Moreover, as the leaves of St. John's- 

 Wort are frequently covered with dark red spots the 

 fathers said that they typified the blood of the martyr. 

 From this time forth the service of the plant began 

 in Christian Europe, and especially on the eve of the 

 feast of St. John was it used to ward off the efforts 



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