CROCUS AND EARLY SPRING FLOWERS 45 



fairly quickly, seed-grown Scillas being of a sale- 

 able size in from three to four years after sowing. 



It was certainly not this early blooming 

 member of the Scilla family that Reginald Scott 

 had in his mind when, in his Discovery of 

 Witchcraft (1587), he wrote of the countries 

 "where they hang Scilla (which is either a root 

 or in this place garlic) in the roof of the house 

 to keep away witches and spirits." One wonders 

 a little what he meant, for garlic is not a Scilla, 

 and it hardly seems likely he was referring to 

 what Parkinson calls Scilla alba, or the Great 

 Sea Onion of the Mediterranean. Onions proper, 

 and many varieties of the Alliums, have, of 

 course, played some considerable part in the 

 history of witchcraft. The only two cases of 

 witchcraft which came under the personal notice 

 of the present writer were connected with the 

 homely English onion. In the one case, it was 

 an old man who accused his neighbour of "over- 

 looking the onion bed," with dire results ; and 

 in the other, it was an accredited wizard who 

 "named an onion for" his enemy, stuck it full 

 of pins, and hung it to shrivel in the chimney, 

 in order that the enemy might shrivel as the 

 onion did, and within the year die in agony. 



