pPanH bore, 'bege?^^/, an^ Tsijric/'. 449 



To dream of Mulberries is of good import: they denote marriage, 

 many children, and all sorts of prosperity: they are particularly 



favourable to sailors and farmers. Among the hill tribes of 



Burniah, the Mulberry-tree is regarded as sacred, and receives a 



kind of worship. A Chinese folk-lore tale records that in the 



Tse dynasty, one Chang Ching, going out at night, saw a woman 

 in the south corner of his house. She beckoned him to come to 

 her, and said : " This is your honour's Mulberry-ground, and I 

 am a shen (fairy) ; if you will make next year, in the middle of the 

 first moon, some thick congee and present it to me, I will engage 

 to make your Mulberry-trees a hundred times more productive." 

 Ching made the congee, and afterwards had a great crop of silk- 

 worms. Hence came the Chinese custom of making thickened 

 congee on the fifteenth of the first month. 



MULLEIN. — The Mullein (Verbascum) was formerly em- 

 ployed by wizards and witches in their incantations. The plant is 

 known as the Flannel-flower from its stem and large leaves being 

 covered with wool, which is often plucked off for tinder. The 

 Great Mullein {V. Thapsus) was called by the old Romans Candela 

 regia, and Candelaria, because they used the stalks dipped in suet 

 to burn at funerals, or as torches ; the modern Romans call the 

 plant Light of the Lord. In England, the White Mullein was 

 termed Candle-week-flower ; and the Great Mullein's tall tapering 

 spikes of yellow flowers suggested, at a period when candles were 

 burnt in churches, the old names of Torches, Hedge-taper, High- 

 taper, and Hig-taper, which became corrupted into Hag-taper, 

 from a belief that witches employed the plant in working their 



spells. The little Moth Mullein {V. Blattayia) derives its specific 



name from hlatta, a cockroach, it being particularly disliked by 

 that troublesome insecft. Gerarde explains its English prefix by 

 stating that moths and butterflies, and all other small flies and bats, 



resort to the place where these herbs are laid or strewed. 



Mullein is known by country people as Bullock's Lungwort, a de- 

 cocflion of the leaves being considered very efficacious in cases of 

 cough : probably we are indebted to the Romans for this specific, for 

 they attributed extraordinary properties to the Mullein as a remedy 

 for coughs. (See also Hag-taper). 



MUG WORT. — The old Latin name for this species of 



^^'ormwood was Arteiiiisia, mater Jurharum; and, according to 



Gerarde, the plant was so named after Artemisia, the wife of 

 Mausolus, King of Caria, who adopted it for her own herb. 



" That with the yellow crown, named from the queen 

 Who built the Mausoleum." — Smi/A's 'At/uzryniAiis,' 



Other authorities say that Artemisia is derived from Artemis, one 

 of the names of Diana, and that the plant was named after that 

 goddess, on account of its being used in bringing on precocious 

 puberty. Among the ancients, the Mugwort had a reputation for 



2G 



