OF HERBS AND BEASTS 197 



picra). Melampode was hellebore or bear's foot, a 

 very important plant, and it was much used in magic. 

 A cynical French verse says : — 



L'ell^bore est la fleur des fous, 

 On I'a dedie a maints poetes. 



Once people blessed their cattle with it to keep them 

 from evil spells, and " for this purpose it was dug up 

 with certain attendant mystic rites : the devotees first 

 drawing a circle round the plant with a sword, and then 

 turning to the east and offering a prayer to Apollo and 

 jEsculapius for leave to dig up the root." ^ In the old 

 French romance, Les Qiiatre Fils Aymon, the sorcerer, 

 Malagis or Maugis, when he wishes to make his way, un- 

 challenged, through the enemy's camp, scatters powdered 

 hellebore in the air as he goes. Both the Black and the 

 White Hellebore, Parkinson says, are known to be very 

 poisonous, and the white hellebore was used by hunters 

 to poison arrows, with which they meant to kill 

 " wolves, foxes, dogs," etc. Black Hellebore was used 

 to heal and not to hurt, and " a piece of the roote being 

 drawne through a hole made in the eare of a beast 

 troubled with cough, or having taken any poisonous 

 thing, cureth it, if it be taken out the next day at the 

 same houre." This writer believes that White Helle- 

 bore would be equally efficacious in such a case, but 

 Gerarde recommends the Black Hellebore only as being 

 good for beasts. He says the old Farriers used to " cut 

 a slit in the dewlap and put in a bit of Beare-foot, and 

 leave it there for dales together." Verbascum thapsis was 

 called Bullock's Lungwort, from the resemblance of its 

 leaf to a dewlap, and on the Doctrine of Signatures was 

 therefore given to cattle suffering from pneumonia. 



Samoclas, or Marchwort, was a strange herb which 

 used to be put in the drinking-troughs of cattle and 

 swine to preserve their health. But to obtain this 



1 Timbs. 



