MARIE DE FRANCE 



have proved a snare to a venturesome and greedy 

 boy, have been discovered in situ. After a lapse 

 of many centuries we find this idea of the life- 

 giving plant reappearing in mediaeval garb, 

 daintily fashioned by Marie de France. 



Marie, in her story, tells us that the weasel 

 brings a red flower. This was possibly the 

 verbena, well known in folk-medicine as vervain, 

 and much used in the Middle Ages. According 

 to one writer, the weasel uses vervain as a 

 preservative against snake-bites, and this idea of 

 its effect might easily have been extended to 

 include death. Even so great an authority as 

 Aristotle mentions that the weasel understood 

 the potent effects of certain herbs. The inter- 

 vention of a weasel instead of the usual serpent 

 opens up the further interesting question as to 

 whether this weasel incident was not imported 

 from India, where Greek stories had become 

 alloyed with Indian lore. Even to-day, in 

 India, a mongoose, a species of weasel, is some- 

 times taken on expeditions by any one fearful 

 of snakes, and kept at night in the tent as a 

 protection against them. 



In addition to the choice of a weasel as 

 medium, the unusual colour of the flower is also 

 of interest. Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in 

 the twelfth century on the subject of weasels, 

 after remarking that they have more heart than 

 body (plus cordis habens quam corporis), goes on 

 to say that they restore their dead by means of a 

 yellow flower, and in the still earlier record of 



53 



