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SNOWDROP. — The Snowdrop (Galanthus nivalis) was for- 

 merly held sacred to virgins, and this may account for its being 

 so generally found in the orchards attached to convents and old 

 monastic buildings. 



" A flow'r that first in this sweet garden smiled, 

 To virgins sacred, and the Snowdrop styled." — Tickell. 



It is also dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and a monkish tradition 

 asserts that it blooms on the second of February, or Candlemas 

 Day, the day kept in celebration as that on which the holy Virgin 

 took the child Jesus to the Jewish Temple and there presented an 

 offering. Hence the flower is called the Fair Maid of February ; 

 as on the Day of the Purification of the Virgin Mary her image used 

 to be removed from the altar, and Snowdrops strewed over the 



vacant place. The legendary account of the flower's creation is 



as follows : — " An angel went to console Eve when mourning over 

 the barren earth, when no flowers in Eden grew, and the driving 

 snow was falling to form a pall for earth's untimeous funeral after 

 the fall of man ; the angel, catching as he spoke a flake of falling 

 snow, breathed on it, and bade it take a form, and bud and blow. 

 Ere the flake reached the earth Eve smiled upon the beauteous 

 plant, and prized it more than all the other flowers in Paradise, 

 for the angel said to her : — 



" 'This is an earnest, Eve, to thee, 

 That sun and summer soon shall be.' " 



The angel's mission being ended, away up to heaven he flew ; but 



where on earth he stood, a ring of Snowdrops formed a posey." 



An old name for the plant was the Winter Gilliflower. Dr. Prior 

 thmks that the name Snowdrop was derived from the German 

 Schneetwpfen, and that the " drop " does not refer to snow, but to 

 the long pendants, or drops, worn by the ladies in the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries, both as earrings and hangings to their 

 brooches, and which we see represented so often by Dutch and 



Italian painters of that period. In some parts of England it is 



considered by the peasantry unlucky to take the first Snowdrop 

 into a house — the flower being regarded as a death-token, inasmuch 

 as it looks like a corpse in its shroud. 



SOLANUM. — To this family belong the Love Apple, the 

 Mad Apple, and the Bitter-Sweet. Several species of the genus 

 Solatium are poisonous and highly dangerous plants. It is related 

 that when Sweno, king of Norway, was besieging Duncan of Scot- 

 land in the town of Betha, Macbeth, his cousin, managed to leave 

 the town, whereupon Duncan began to treat with the enemy as to the 

 terms of a surrender, promising them a supply of provender. The 

 Danes accepted the terms, and Duncan sent them their provi- 

 sions, which they duly partook of ; but soon after they were over- 

 come by a profound lethargic sleep, for their wine and ale had 

 been drugged with Solanum. In this condition they fell an easy 



