Baptist, every man's door being shadowed with green Birch, long 

 Fennel, St. John's Wort, Orpine, white Lilies, and such like, 

 garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had also lamps 



of glass with oil burning in them all the night." The peasantry 



of the Isle of Man have a tradition that if you tread on the St. 

 John's Wort after sunset, a fairy horse will rise from the earth, 

 and, after carrying you about all night, will leave you in the 



morning wherever you may chance to be at sunrise. St. John's 



Wort was by old medical writers deemed of great utility in the 

 cure of hypochondriacal disorders, and B. Visontius commends the 

 herb to one troubled with heart-melancholy. For this purpose it 

 was to be gathered on a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter, when he 

 comes to his effecflual operation (that is, about the full moon in 

 July) ; " so gathered, and borne or hung about the neck, it mightily 

 helps this affe(5tion, and drives away all phantastical spirits." 

 Another remarkable quality ascribed to the plant was its power of 

 curing all sorts of wounds : hence originated its old name of Tutsan^ 

 a corruption of its French cognomen la Totite-saine, or All-heal. In 

 Sicily, they gather Hypericum perfomtmn, and immerse it in Olive- 

 oil, which is by this means transformed into an infallible balm for 

 wounds. A salve made from the flowers, and known as St. John's 

 Wort salve, is still much used and valued in English villages : it is 

 a very old remedy, whose praises have been spoken by Dioscorides 

 and Pliny, Gerarde, Culpeper, and all the old English herbalists. 

 As these flowers, when rubbed between the fingers, yield a red 

 juice, it has, among fanciful medical men, obtained the name of 

 sanguis hominis (human blood). 



SALLOW. — The Sallow {Salix caprea) is the Selja of the 

 Norsemen, an ill-omened plant possessing many magical properties. 

 No child can be born in safety where a branch of this sinister tree 

 is suspended ; and no spirit can depart in peace from its earthly 

 frame, if it be near them. It is the badge of the Scottish Clan 

 Gumming. 



SAL-TREE. — The Sala or Sal {Shorea yohusta) is one of the 

 sacred trees of India. According to the Buddhists' belief, it was 

 while holding in her hand a branch of the sacred Sala, that the 

 mother of Buddha gave birth to the divine infant prince. It was 

 beneath the shelter of two twin Sal-trees, that Buddha passed his 

 last night en earth, near Kucinagara, " beneath a rain of flowers, 

 with which the Sal-tree growing there covered his venerated body." 

 Thus we read in Da Gunha's ' Life of Buddha ' — " He then retired 

 to Ku9inagara, and entered a grove of Sal-trees {Shorea robusta) ; 

 there, during the night, he received a gift of food from an artizan 

 named Ghanda, and was seized with illness. At early dawn next 

 day, as he turned on to his right side with his head to the north, 

 the Sal-trees bending down to form a canopy over his body, he 

 ceased to breathe." It was not the season for Sal-trees to bloom. 



