MARCH 63 



is it called Herb Trinity. The single red anemone is also said 

 to have grown at the foot of the Cross, and to have received 

 its brilliant scarlet from the like august dye. The piety of 

 our ancestors named the anemone " Our Lady's Petticoats," 

 and dedicated it to the Blessed Virgin. It was Pasque-flower 

 because it blew about Easter- tide. The Pasque-flower is the 

 purple anemone, and the purple of its leaves was used to 

 dye Easter-eggs withal, as they use the gold of the broom in 

 northern countries to this day. An old name for the wind- 

 flower was flaw-flower, which means much the same thing. 

 A flaw was a sudden blast of wind. In Scotland the peasant 

 speaks of a sudden drift of light snow on the wind as "a flaw 



o' snaw." 



The violet, too, is rich in folk-lore, and the delicate and 

 fanciful allusions given to it by writers old and new are in- 

 numerable. Long ago, old Lyte, the herbalist, wrote : " There 

 be two sortes of violets, the garden and the wilde violet. The 

 garden violets are of a fayre, darke, or shining deepe blewe 

 colour, and a very pleasant and amiable smelle. The wilde 

 violets are without savour, and of a fainte blewe or pale 

 colour. The sweete violet (as the Emperor Constantine 

 wryteth) was called in Greek, Ion, after the name of that 

 sweete guirle or pleasant damosell, lo, whiche Jupiter turned 

 into a trim heafFer or gallant cowe, because that his wife Juno 

 (being both an angry and a jealouse goddesse) should not 

 suspect that he loved her. In the honour of whiche his lo, 

 as also for her more delicate and holsome feeding, the earth, 

 at the commandement of Jupiter, brought forth violettes." 



And Gerard, the prince of herbalists, also waxes eloquent 

 over the flower : " Very many of these violets receive orna- 



