72 SUPPOSED QUALITIES OF VERVAIN. 



fore the different nations had lost all communication 

 with each other." We might with some appearance of 

 reason, perhaps, name the Druids of Gaul as the point, 

 whence certain mysteries and observances were con- 

 veyed to the priesthood of various nations ; but it would 

 be difficult to assign a motive for their fixing upon such 

 plants as vervain, and some others, to give efficacy to 

 their ceremonies and rites. In some of the Welsh coun- 

 ties, vervain is known by the name of " Ilyssiaur hudol," 

 the enchanter's plant. It seems to have had ascribed to 

 it the power of curing the bites of all rabid animals, 

 arresting the progress of the venom of serpents, recon- 

 ciling antipathies, conciliating friendships, &c. Gerard, 

 after detailing some of its virtues from Pliny, observes, 

 that " many odde old wives' fables are written of ver- 

 vaine tending to witchcraft and sorcerie, which you may 

 read elsewhere, for I am not willing to trouble you with 

 reporting such trifles as honest ears abhorre to hear." 

 To us moderns its real virtues are unknown ; regular 

 practice does not allow that it possesses any medicinal 

 efficacy, and its fanciful peculiarities are in no repute ; 

 yet it seems to hanker after its lost fame, and lingers 

 around the dwellings of man ; for though not solely 

 found about our habitations, as Miller thought, yet 

 generally, when perceived, it is near some inhabited 

 or ruined residence, not as a stray from cultivation, but 

 from preference. Our village doctresses, an almost ex- 

 tinct race of useful, valuable women, the consolers, the 

 comforters, and often mitigators of the ailments of 

 the poor, still make use of vervain tea as a strengthener, 

 and the dried powder of its leaves as a vermifuge; but 

 probably in another generation all the venerated virtues 

 of the vervain will be consigned to oblivion. This plant 

 seems to be the native growth of many districts in 

 Europe, Asia, and Africa. 



The dyers' weed, yellow weed, weld, or wold (reseda 

 luteola),* thrives in all our abandoned stone quarries, 

 upon the rejected rubbish of the lime-kiln, and waste 

 places of the roads, apparently a perfectly indigenous 

 plant. Unmindful of frost, or of drought, it preserves a 

 degree of verdure, when nearly all other vegetation is 

 * See note L, appendix. 



