HERBS USED IN DECORATIONS, ETC. 139 



Dream was one of them. The plant was of some 

 importance among the Mexicans, and when they kept 

 the festival of Huixtocihuatl, the Goddess of Salt, they 

 began with a great dance of women, who were joined 

 to one another by strings of different flowers, and who 

 wore on their heads garlands of wormwood. This dance 

 continued all night, and on the following morning the 

 dance of the priests began. {Nineteenth Century, Sept. 

 1879-) 



According to the ancients. Wormwood counteracts 

 the effects of poisoning by toadstools, hemlock, and 

 the biting of the shrew mouse or sea-dragon; while 

 Mugwort preserves the wayfarer from fatigue, sun- 

 stroke, wild beasts, the Evil Eye in man, and also from 

 evil spirits ! Lupton says that it is " commonly affirmed 

 that, on Midsummer Eve, there is found at the root of 

 Mugwort a coal which keeps safe from the plague, 

 carbuncle, lightning, and the quartan ague, them that 

 bear the same about them ; and Mizaldus, the writer 

 hereof, saith that it is to be found the same day under 

 the Plantain, which is especially and chiefly to be found 

 at noon." ^ Later writers have unkindly insisted that 

 these wonderful " coals " were no more nor less than old 

 dead roots ! Gerarde and Parkinson are both dignified 

 and contemptuous over these stories. Gerarde says, 

 " Many other fantasticall devices invented by poets are 

 to be seen in the works of ancient writers. I do of 

 purpose omit them, as things unworthy of my recording 

 or your reviewing." Parkinson is still more severe on 

 " idle superstitions and irreligious relations," and abuses 

 this special " idle conceit," which Gerarde has not 

 deigned to repeat. It is told even by " Bauhinus, who 

 glorieth to be an eye-witnesse of this foppery. But oh ! 

 the weake and fraile nature of man ! Which I cannot 

 but lament." Turner devotes a great deal of space to 



1" Notable Things." 



