490 pPant Tsore, Tsege'r^/, anel Tsyrlo/", 



The village girls in Hertfordshire lay the pod with nine Peas under 

 a gate, and believe they will have for husband the man who first 

 passes through, or, at any rate, one whose Christian name and 



surname have the same initials as his. It is always considered 



a good augury to dream of Peas. In Suffolk, there is a legend 



that the Lathynis Maritimus, or Everlasting Pea of the sea-side, 

 sprang up on the coast there for the first time in a season when 

 greatly needed ; and Fuller says of this particular Pea that " in a 

 general dearth all over England, plenty of Peas did grow on the 

 sea-shore, near Dunmow, in Suffolk, never set or sown by human 

 industry, which, being gathered in a full ripeness, much abated 

 the high price in the markets, and preserved many hungry families 

 from perishing." 



PEACH. — There is an old tradition that the falling of the 

 leaves of a Peach-tree betoken a murrain. There is a super- 

 stitious belief in Sicily, that anyone Siffii6ied with goitre, who on 

 the night of St. John, or of the Ascension, eats a Peach, will be 

 cured, provided only that the Peach-tree dies at the same time; 

 the idea being that the tree, in dying, takes the goitre away with 

 it, and sa delivers the sufferer from the afflicftion. In Italy, as a 

 charm to cure warts. Peach-leaves are carefully buried in the earth, 



so that as they perish the wart may disappear. To dream of 



Peaches in season denotes content, health, and pleasure. 



PEAR. — Among the ancients, the Pear was specially conse- 

 crated to Venus. Columella knew a species called Pyms Venerea, the 

 Pear of Love. The Scots claim that " fair Avalon," the Celtic "Isle 

 of the Blest," is an island in Loch Awe, Argyleshire; and the Gaelic 

 legend changes the mystical Apples into the berries of the 

 Pyrus cordata, a species of wild Pear, found both in the island of 



Loch Awe, and in Aiguilon. On the Continent, there is a belief 



that orchards are infested by malignant spirits, which attack the 

 fruit-trees, and in the Departement de I'Orne, to drive away the 

 demons which attack Pears and Apples, the peasants burn the 

 Moss on the trunk and branches, singing the while an appropriate 

 rhyme or incantation. In Aargau, Switzerland, when a boy is 



born, they plant an Apple-tree; when a girl, a Pear. To dream 



of ripe Pears betokens riches and happiness; if unripe, adversity; 

 if baked, great success in business; to a woman a dream of Pears 

 denotes that she will marry above her in rank. 



PEEPUL. — The Ficus religiosa, the Asvattha or Pippala of the 

 Hindus, is a tree held in the highest sancftity by the Buddhists, 

 near whose temples it is always found. It is this tree — the Bodhi- 

 druma, the Tree of Wisdom — under which Buddha sat absorbed 

 in a species of intelle(5lual ecstacy, and which his followers regard 

 as the tree of creation, life, wisdom, and preparation for Paradise, 

 as well as the yielder of ambrosia and rain. From ancient Vedic 

 tradition the Buddhists have inherited the worship of this sacred 



