12 A GARDEN OF HERBS 



part of the common sort of his readers will think these things 

 above their capacity, but his conscience bounde him some- 

 what to put such matter into their heades." 



When one reads the curious instructions in these old books 

 one cannot help wondering whether any anxious learner 

 took them seriously. Did they ever sprinkle seeds with 

 wine to strengthen them, and drag speckled toads about 

 the garden to safeguard the young herbs ? Did they hang 

 hyena and crocodile skins in the alleys to protect them from 

 lightning, and hippopotamus' skins or owls' wings outspread 

 against tempests? Were eagles' feathers planted in the 

 four corners and in the middle to ward off mists and frosts ? 

 And to avert disease in the plants did they burn the left horn 

 of an ox? Was any one ever seen creeping stealthily into 

 his neighbour's garden to purloin caterpillars, in order to 

 seethe them with the herb dill and sprinkle the mixture 

 in order to abolish caterpillars for ever from his own garden ? 

 (" Take very dilegent hede," Hill thoughtfully adds, " that 

 none of this water fall neither on your face, nor hands.") 

 Did they put a solitary mole into a pot so that when " he 

 crieth out the others minding to help him forth will also 

 fall into the pot " ? Were mice frightened away by the beds 

 being sprinkled with water in which the cat had been washed, 

 or by a mixture of wild cucumber, henbane and bitter 

 almonds? "No adder," says Hill, "will come into a 

 garden in which grow wormwood, mugwort and southern- 

 wood, and therefore it should be aptly planted in the corners 

 or round about the garden." Did any one follow the advice 

 to run after adders and throw green oak leaves on them that 

 they might die forthwith? Adders it seems love fennel 

 " as toads love sage and snakes rocket." And if after a 

 strenuous day the croaking of the frogs disquieted the 

 gardener, did he go and hang up lanterns to make them 

 think the sun was shining ? 



In the sixteenth century the fashion for growing herbs 

 in " knots " and " mazes " came in, and I have included 

 some of the old designs in this book, and, though artificial, 

 at least they are not so ugly as the survivals one still sees 



