826 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of husbanding this vahiable product, and there is less and less 

 waste every day. Indeed, it behooves all to be careful, for, with 

 the exhaustion of the gas, the improvements, the factories, the 

 towns themselves will vanish. 



PLANTS IN WITCHCRAFT.* 



By T. F. THISELTON DYEK. 



THE vast proportions which the great witchcraft movement 

 assumed in by-gone years explains the magic properties which 

 we find ascribed to so many plants in most countries. In the ne- 

 farious trade carried on by the representatives of this cruel system 

 of sorcery certain plants were largely employed for working mar- 

 vels, hence the mystic character which they have ever since re- 

 tained. It was necessary, however, that these should be plucked 

 at certain phases of the moon or seasons of the year, or from some 

 spot where the sun was supposed not to have shone on it.f Hence 

 Shakespeare makes one of his witches speak of " root of hemlock 

 digg'd i' the dark," and of " slips of yew sliver'd in the moon's 

 eclipse," a practice which was long kept up. The plants, too, 

 which formed the witches' pharmacopoeia, were generally selected 

 either from their legendary associations or by reason of their poi- 

 sonous and sojDorific qualities. Thus, two of those most frequently 

 used as ingredients in the mystic caldron were the vervain and 

 the rue, these plants having been specially credited with super- 

 natural virtues. The former probably derived its notoriety from 

 the fact of its being sacred to Thor, an honor which marked it 

 out, like other lightning plants, as peculiarly adapted for occult 

 uses. It was, moreover, among the sacred plants of the Druids, 

 and was only gathered by them, " when the dog-star arose, from 

 unsunned spots." At the same time, it is noteworthy that many 

 of the plants which were in repute with witches for working their 

 marvels were reckoned as counter-charms, a fact which is not 

 surprising, as materials used by wizards and others for magical 

 purposes have generally been regarded as equally efficacious if 

 employed against their charms and spells. J Although vervain, 

 therefore, as the " enchanters' plant," was gathered by witches to 

 do mischief in their incantations, yet, as Aubrey says, it " hinders 

 witches from their will," a circumstance to which Drayton further 

 refers when he speaks of the vervain as " 'gainst witchcraft much 

 avayling." Rue, likewise, which entered so largely into magic 

 rites, was once much in request as an antidote against such prac- 



* From " The Folk-Lore of Plants," in the press of D. Appleton & Co. 

 f See Moncure Conway's "Demonology and Devil-Lore," 1880, ii, 324. 

 X See Friend's "Flower-Lore," ii, 529, 530. 



