38 THE OLD ENGLISH HERBALS 



When the Saxon peasant went to gather his healing herbs he 

 may have used Christian prayers 1 and ceremonies, but he did 

 not forget the goddess of the dawn. It is noteworthy how 

 frequently we find the injunction that the herbs must be picked 

 at sunrise or when day and night divide, how often stress is laid 

 upon looking towards the east, and turning " as the sun goeth 

 from east to south and west." In many there is the instruction 

 that the herb is to be gathered " without use of iron " or " with 

 gold and with hart's horn" (emblems of the sun's rays). It 

 is curious how little there is of moon lore. In some cases the 

 herbs are to be gathered in silence, in others the man who gathers 

 them is not to look behind him a prohibition which occurs 

 frequently in ancient superstitions. The ceremonies are all 

 mysterious and suggestive, but behind them always lies the 

 ancient ineradicable worship of Nature. To what dim past 

 does that cry, " Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth " carry us? 



" Erce, Erce, Erce, Mother of Earth ! 

 May the All-Wielder, Ever Lord grant thee 



by the day or by the moon. Let none trust in nor presume to invoke the 

 names of daemons, neither Neptune, nor Orcus, nor Diana, nor Minerva, nor 

 Geniscus nor any other such follies. . . . Let no Christian place lights at the 

 temples or the stones, or at fountains, or at trees, or at places where three 

 ways meet. . . . Let none presume to hang amulets on the neck of man or 

 beast. . . . Let no one presume to make lustrations, nor to enchant herbs, 

 nor to make flocks pass through a hollow tree, or an aperture in the earth ; 

 for by so doing he seems to consecrate them to the devil. Let none on the 

 kalends of January join in the wicked and ridiculous things, the dressing 

 like old women or like stags, nor make feasts lasting all night, nor keep up 

 the custom of gifts and intemperate drinking. Let no one on the festival of 

 St. John or on any of the festivals join in the solstitia or dances or leaping 

 or caraulas or diabolical songs." From a sermon preached by St. Eloy in 

 A.D. 640. 



1 A Christian prayer for a blessing on herbs runs thus : 

 " Omnipotens sempiterne deus qui ab initio mundi omnia instituisti et creasti 

 tarn arborum generibus quam herbarum seminibus quibus etiam benedictione 

 tua benedicendo sanxisti eadem nunc benedictione olera aliosque fructus 

 sanctificare ac benedicere digneris ut sumentibus ex eis sanitatem conferant 

 mentis et corporis ac tutelam defensionis eternamque uitam per saluatorem ani- 

 marum dominum nostrum iesum christum qui uiuit et regnat dominus in 

 secula seculorum. Amen." 



