326 ©faat Tsjore, "begef^^/, aai. "bi^rle/*. 



sigh sprang up a little pale flower which was the Wegewarte, the 



watcher of the road. In Bavaria, the same legend is met with, 



differing only in details. A young and beautiful princess was 

 abandoned by her husband, a young prince of extraordinary beauty. 

 Grief exhausted her strength, and finding herself on the point of 

 death, she exclaimed: "Ah, how willingly would I die if I could 

 only be sure of seeing my loved one, wherever I may be. Her 

 ladies-in-waiting, hearing her desire, solemnly added : " And we also 

 would willingly die if only we were assured that he would always 

 see us on every roadside." The merciful God heard from heaven 

 their heart-felt desires, and granted them. " Happily," said He, 

 " your wishes can be fulfilled ; I will change you into flowers. 

 You, Princess, you shall remain with your white mantle on every 

 road traversed by your husband ; you, young women, shall remain 

 by the roadside, habited in blue, so that the prince must see 

 you everywhere." Hence the Germans call the wild Succory, 



[Vege7(>arten. Gerarde tells us that Placentinus and Crescentius 



termed the Endive, Sponsa soils, Spouse of the Sun (a name applied 

 by Porta to the Heliotrope), and we find in De Gubernatis' Myihologie 

 des Plantcs, the following passage: — " Professor Mannhardt quotes 

 the charming Roumanian ballad, in which is recounted how the 

 Sun asked in marriage a beautiful woman known as Domna Florilor, 

 or the Lady of the Flowers ; she refused him, whereupon the Sun, 

 in revenge, transformed her into the Endive, condemned for ever 

 to gaze on the Sun as soon as he appears on the horizon, and to 

 close her petals in sadness as the luminary disappears. The name 

 of Domna Florilor, a kind of Flora, given by the Roumanians to the 

 woman loved by the Sun, reminds us somewhat of the name of 

 Fioraliso, given in Italy to the Cornflower, and which I supposed 

 to have represented the Sun. The Roumanian legend has, without 

 doubt, been derived from an Italian source, in its turn a develop- 

 ment of a Grecian myth — to wit, the amour of the Sun, Phoebus, 



with the lovely nymph Clytie." (See Heliotrope). There is a 



Silesian fairy tale which has reference to the Endive : — The magician 

 ■ Batu had a daughter named Czekanka, who loved the youthful 

 Wrawanec ; but a cruel rival slew the beloved one. In despair, 

 Czekanka sought her lover's tomb, and killed herself beside it. 

 Whilst in her death throes, she was changed into the blue Succory, 

 and gave the flower its Silesian name Czekanka. Wrawanec's 

 murderer, jealous of poor Czekanka, even after her death, threw on 

 the plant a swarm of ants, in the hope that the little insecfts might 

 destroy the Succory, but the ants, on the contrary, in their rage, 

 set off in pursuit of the murderer, and so vigorously attacked hirn, 

 that he was precipitated into a crevasse on the mountain Kotancz. 

 In Germany and in Rome, where a variety of estimable quali- 

 ties are ascribed to the plant, they sell Endive-seed as a panacea, 

 but especially as a love philtre. They would not uproot it with 

 the hand, but with a bit of gold or a stag's horn (which symbolise 



