102 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN 



In reading accounts of the witch times, one 

 notices very forcibly that the plants employed by 

 the witches are nearly always vervain and rue. 



The Foxglove was in high repute among witches 

 at one time, and it was said that they liked to 

 decorate their fingers with its flowers, on which 

 account they were known as " Witches' Thimbles." 

 The Irish represent the Shelfo, one of their 

 numerous species of sprites, as wearing the corolla 

 of the foxglove on its head. Other plants beloved 

 of witches are the hemlock, St. John's wort, and 

 deadly nightshade, whose juices are infused into 

 the baleful draughts prepared for their enemies. 



l^he Deadly Nightshade^ whose correct name is 

 Atrofa belladonna, is extremely poisonous, and a 

 plant of ill omen; Gerarde, the old herbalist, says 

 of it: " If you will follow my counsel, deale not 

 with the same in any case, and banish it from your 

 gardens, and the use of it also, being a plant so 

 furious and deadly, for it bringeth such as have 

 eaten thereof into a dead sleepe, wherein many 

 have died." There is an ancient belief that the 

 deadly nightshade is the form of a fatal enchantress 

 or witch, called Atropa. 



Every part of the plant is most virulently poison- 

 ous, root, stem, leaves, and the little black berries, of 

 which William Wetmore Story in the " Passing of 

 Summer " writes: 



" While the Belladonna, so wickedly fair, 



Shorn of the purple flowers that crowned her, 

 Is telling her Borgian beads in despair." 



The Sabbath of Witches is a meeting to which 

 the sisterhood, after having been anointed with 



