pfant Isore, Isege^^V? ^^^^ "ISHjr'icf, 589 



Observe, a young man must pluck the Yarrow off a young maiden's 

 grave, and a female must selecft that off a bachelor's. Retire home 

 to bed without speaking another word, or it dissolves the spell; 

 put the Yarrow under your pillow, and it will procure a sure dream 



on which you may depend. In another spell to procure for a 



maiden a dream of the future, she is to make a posey of various 

 coloured flowers, one of a sort, some Yarrow off a grave, and a 

 sprig of Kue, and bind all together with a little hair from her 

 head. She is then to sprinkle the nosegay with a few drops 

 of the oil of amber, using her left hand, and bind the flowers 

 round her head when she retires to rest in a bed supplied with 

 clean linen. This spell it is stated will ensure the maid's future 



fate to appear in a dream. The Yarrow acquired the name 



of Nosebleed from its having been put into the nose to cause 

 bleeding, and to cure the megrim, as we learn from Gerarde. 

 Dr. Prior adds, that it was also called Nosebleed from its being 

 used as a means of testing a lover's fidelity, and he quotes 

 from Forby, who, in his ' East Anglia,' says that, in that part 

 of England, a girl will tickle the inside of the nostril with a leaf 

 of this plant, crying: — 



*' Yarroway, Yarroway, bear a white blow ; 

 If my love love me, my nose will bleed now." 



By a blunder of the mediaeval herbalists, the name and remedial 

 chara(5ler of the Horse-tail, which was formerly called Herba sangui- 

 naria and Nosebleed, were transferred without reason to the Yarrow, 



which has since retained them. The Yarrow is also known as 



Old Man's Pepper, and was formerly called the Souldier's Wound- 

 wort. The Highlanders make an ointment from it; and it was 

 similarly employed by the ancient Greeks, who said that Achilles 

 first made use of this plant as a wound herb, having learnt its 

 virtues of Chiron, the Centaur — hence its scientific name Achillea. 



Astrologers place the herb under the dominion of Venus. 



To dream of gathering Yarrow for medicinal purposes denotes that 

 the dreamer will shortly hear of something that will give him or 

 her extreme pleasure. 



YEW. The dark and sombre Yew-tree has from the 



remote past been invested with an essentially funereal charadter, 

 and hence is appropriately found in the shade of churchyards and 

 in propinquity to tombs. Blair, addressing himself to the grave, 

 says : — 



" Well do I know thee by thy trusty Yew, 

 Cheerless, unsocial plant, that loves to dwell 

 'Midst skulls and coffins, epitaphs, and worms; 

 Where light-heeled ghosts, and visionary shades, 

 Beneath the wan cold moon (so fame reports), 

 Embody'd, thick, perform their mystic rounds. 

 No other merriment, dull tree, is thine." 



