A Handful of Weeds 357 
in mild December weather. Or perhaps its out- 
flashing golden petals suggested the sun, and so 
the rising of the Sun of Righteousness, much as 
the radiant aspect of some white and golden June 
flowers, caused them to be associated with Baldur, 
the Norse god of the summer sunshine. 
The plantain or ribwort (Plantago major), that 
persistent intruder upon our lawns, was once highly 
_esteemed as a healer of wounds, and hence, in some 
oe 
parts of England it was known as ‘‘ wound-weed.”’ 
One would almost as soon associate legend and fan- 
tasy with a cabbage as with this coarse-leaved herb 
(Fig. 98) whose aspect is matter of fact to the last 
degree. Yet in rural parts of the Old World it 
was—perhaps it still is—the favorite midsummer- 
dream plant. For just one hour on just one 
day of the year there may be found, beneath its 
leaves, a rare and magic coal; and with this 
under the pillow one will learn one’s fate in a 
dream. 
‘When Aubrey happened to be walking behind 
x3 at 
Montague House,’’ says Thistleton Dyer, 
twelve o’clock on Midsummer’s Day, he saw about 
twenty young women, all, apparently, very busy 
weeding. On making inquiries he was told that 
they were looking for a coal under the root of a 
