xxii. pfant Isorc, "heQer^/, anil Tsijne/. 



awakens every day with the sun, just as does the flower of the 

 Succory?" These scientific elucidations of myths, however dex- 

 terous and poetical they may be, do not appear to us applicable to 

 plant legends, whose chief charm lies in their simplicity and appo- 

 siteness; nor can we imagine why Aryan or other story-tellers 

 should be deemed so destitute of inventive powers as to be obliged 

 to limit all their tales to the description of celestial phenomena. In 

 the Vedas, trees, flowers, and herbs are invoked to cause love, 

 avert evil and danger, and neutralise spells and curses. The 

 ancients must, therefore, have had an exalted idea of their nature 

 and properties, and hence it is not surprising that they should 

 have dedicated them to their deities, and that these deities should 

 have employed them for supernatural purposes. Thus Indra con- 

 quered Vritra and slew demons by means of the Soma ; Hermes 

 presented the all-potent Moly to Ulysses ; and Medea taught Jason 

 how to use certain enchanted herbs ; just as, later in the world's 

 history, Druids exorcised evil spirits with Mistletoe and Vervain, 

 and sorcerers and wise women used St. John's Wort and other 

 plants to ward off demons and thunderbolts. The ancients evi- 

 dently regarded their gods and goddesses as very human, and 

 therefore it would seem unnecessary and unjust so to alter their 

 tales about them as to explain away their obvious meaning. 



Flowers are the companions of man throughout his life — 

 his attendants to his last resting place. They are, as Mr. Ruskin 

 says, precious always " to the child and the girl, the peasant and 

 the manufa(5luring operative, to the grisette and the nun, the 

 lover and the monk." Nature, in scattering them over the earth's 

 surface, would seem to have designed to cheer and refresh its 

 inhabitants by their varied colouring and fragrance, and to elevate 

 them by their wondrous beauty and delicacy ; from them, as old 

 Parkinson truly wrote, "we may draw matter at all times, not onely 

 to magnifie the Creator that hath given them such diversities of 

 forms, sents, and colours, that the most cunning workman cannot 

 imitate, .... but many good instru(5lions also to our selves ; 

 that as many herbs and flowers, with their fragrant sweet smels 

 do comfort and as it were revive the spirits, and perfume a whole 

 house, even so such men as live vertuously, labouring to do good, 



