'J ransactions. 81 



Ic was banished from the neighbourhood of dwelling-houses, and 

 its evil odour was said to taint any fi'uit with which it came in 

 contact. 



By a change in the popular ideas, the current of which seeins 

 easily traced, the estimation in which those trees of the cross 

 were held became a high one, and the elder thus acquired a better 

 reputation. It was planted near houses to keep oflf witches and 

 evil spirits. Its branches were placed among gooseberry bushes 

 to keep off the attacks of the catei'pillar, and a piece in the 

 form of a cross taken from a tree which grew in consecrated 

 ground was carried in the pocket as a cure for rheumatism. In 

 a book, published in 1884, it is said that applications for pieces 

 of elder trees grown in some churchyards in Gloucestershire were 

 still being made as a cure for this malady. 



Another trace of plant superstitions remains in the occasional 

 appearance of sempervivums or houseleeks, and sedmus or stone- 

 crops on the roofs of houses. From a picturesque point of view, I 

 mucli regret that these are now comparatively rarely seen, but 

 there seems no doubt that they are an unconscious suivival of the 

 superstition, still widely current, both in England and in various 

 parts of the Continent, that these plants will ward oil' lightning. 

 This seems to have arisen from their evergreen character, and 

 their withstanding great heat and drought betokening their 

 resistance to fierceness of the electric fluid. This is only an 

 instance of what is known as the " doctrine of signatures " so 

 universally accepted by the old herbalists, and which will be 

 found at the root of many superstitions. Since beginning this 

 paper I have discovered that, a number of years ago, houseleeks 

 were grown on the roofs of a cottage and a cowhouse near Kirk- 

 bean Village, the reason given for their presence being that they 

 were " lucky " plants. 



Another instance of plant superstitions was familiar to me in 

 my boyhood, but seems to be gradually falling into oblivion. This 

 was the belief that after the Rood Fair the evil one put his club 

 foot on the blackberries, and made them uneatable. Probably a 

 different date may be given in localities beyond the sj^here of 

 influence of the fair — the general belief in Britain giving October 

 28th (St. Simon and St. Jude's day), a Sussex version, however, 

 making it appear that on October 10th (Old Michaelmas day) the 



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