PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 33 



later manuscript something more than the light of 

 common day still glorifies the rosemary. Among 

 other things we are told that to carry a piece of this 

 plant is to keep every evil spirit at a distance, and that 

 it has all the virtues of the stone called jet. It was 

 because it was obnoxious to evil spirits that it was used 

 at funerals. But it was not only used at funerals. 

 There is a story told by an old writer of a widower who 

 wished to be married again on the day of his former 

 wife's funeral, because the rosemary employed at the 

 funeral could be used for the wedding also. For its 

 use at weddings there was an additional reason which 

 may be inferred from the Welsh manuscript, where it 

 is prescribed as a remedy for barrenness. 1 For the 

 same purpose it was administered elsewhere by 

 physicians in the seventeenth century with grains of 

 mastic, 2 and it appears to have a reputation still in some 

 parts of Belgium. 3 



We turn to less ambiguous proceedings. Among the 

 ancient Medes, Persians and Bactrians the juice of the 

 sacred soma was prescribed to procure for unpro- 

 ductive women fair children and a pure succession. 4 

 Thus the birth of Zoroaster himself was, as we have 

 seen, believed to have been caused. 5 One of the rules 

 for the performance of the Vedic domestic ceremonies, 



1 Meddygon Myddfai, 263; Friend, 113, 124, 581. Compare the 

 parallel uses of rue (i. Arch. Religionsw. 108 ; Hofler, Volksmed. 104). 



* Ploss, Weib, i. 434. Some of the many similar prescriptions by 

 physicians and in folk-medicine are given in the context. A Gipsy 

 charm quoted by Leland from Dr. von Wlislocki prescribes oats to 

 be given to a mare out of an apron or gourd, with an incantation 

 expressly bidding her " Eat, fill thy belly with young ! " (Gip : Sore. 

 84). * Am Urquell, vi. 218. 



4 Ploss, Weib, i. 431, citing Duncker, * Supra, p. 12. 



