ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



PLANT WORSHIP. 



THE plant worship which holds so prominent a place in the history of the 

 primitive races of mankind would appear to have sprung from a percep- 

 tion of the beauty and utility of trees. Survivals of this still linger on in many 

 parts of Europe. The peasants in Bohemia will sally forth into their gardens 

 before sunrise on Good Friday, and falling upon their knees before a tree will 

 exclaim : " I pray Q green tree, that God may make thee good." At night time 

 they will run to and fro about their gardens crying : " Bud, O trees, bud, or I 

 will flog you." In our own country the Devonshire farmers and their men will 

 to this day go out into their orchards after supper on the evening of Twelfth 

 Day, carrying with them a large milk pail of cider, with roasted apples pressed 

 into it. All present hold in their hands an earthenware cup filled with liquor, 

 and taking up their stand beneath those apple trees which have borne the most 

 fruit, address them in these words : 



" Health to thee, good apple tree, 

 Well to bear pocket fulls, hat fulls, 

 Peck fulls, bushel bag fulls ! " 



simultaneously dashing the contents of their cups over the trges. The observ- 

 ance of this ceremony, which is locally known as "wassailing," is enjoined by 

 Thomas Tusser in his work entitled " Five Hundred Points of Good Hus- 

 bandry," wherein he bids the husbandman 



" Wassail the trees, that they may bear 

 You many a plum and many a pear ; 

 For more or less fruit they will bring, 

 As you do them wassailing." 



In most countries certain plants are to be found associated with witches and 

 their craft. Shakespeare causes one of his witches to discourse of root of 

 "hemlock digg'd i' the dark;" likewise also of "slips of yew sliver'd in the 

 moon's eclipse." Vervain was in olden times known as '' the enchanter's plant ; " 

 rue, again, was regarded as an antidote against their spells and machinations. 

 Their partiality for certain trees is well known. According to Grimm, the 

 trysting place of the Neapolitan witches was a walnut tree near Benevento. 

 In walnut and elder trees they are also said to be in the habit of lurking at 

 nightfall. Witches, too, had their favorite flowers. Among these the foxglove 

 was known as the "witches' bells; "the harebell as the "witches' thimbles." 

 Tradition asserted that on moonlight nights they might be seen flying through 

 the air, mounted on the stems of the ragwort, reeds, or bulrushes. Throughout 

 Germany it is believed that witches career through the midnight skies on hay. 

 Many plants were pressed into the service of charms and spells for the detec- 

 tion of witches and evil spirits when wandering about on their nefarious 

 errands, particularly the St. John's wort, still largely worn by the German 

 peasantry as a kind of amulet on St. John's eve. It was an old belief that all 

 baptized persons whose eyes had been steeped in the green juice of the inner 



