THE ST. JOHN'S WORT. 99 



herb of an earnest cry, or prayer ; a name which 

 forcibly pour trays to the imagination the strong 

 faith with which the plant was regarded at a time 

 when the fear of evil spirits was no trifling terror. 

 This accounts for the reverential awe with which 

 this last name is still mentioned by the Welsh 

 peasant, even though he has long learned to place 

 his faith far above any created thing. From the 

 feeling too with which this plant was viewed, arose 

 the name of Tsgol Grist, the school, or ladder (for, 

 very significantly, the Welsh language has but the 

 one word for the two things) of Christ: which 

 was afterwards, in the gradual engraftment of idol- 

 worship on the truths of Christianity, converted 

 into Tsgol Fair, the school or ladder of Mary* 

 While Dail y Trwch has the double signification 

 of the leaf of the lame, or of the desolate and 

 unhappy man. 



I have alluded to the superstitions which clus- 

 tered so thickly around the night of St. John, 

 midsummer's eve ; when evil spirits were at large, 

 and this plant was in great demand in order to pro- 

 tect persons or dwellings against their assaults. 

 Stowe, in his " Survey of London/' tells us that on 

 the vigil of St. John, " every man's door was 

 shadowed with green birch, long fennel, St. John's- 



* Jones is mistaken when he applies these last two names 

 to the St. Peter' s-wort (Symphoria), of which none of the 

 species are British. See his "Physical herbs, trees, and 

 fruits," compiled, as he tells us, in his useful Dictionary, 

 " by the great pains and industry of Thomas Jones," in the 

 year 1777. 



F 2 



