Class III. VIPER SERPENT. 43 



This reminds me of another Welsh word that Vervaine. 

 is explanatory of the customs of the antients, 

 shewing their intent in the use of the plant Ver- 

 vaine in their lustrations ; and why it was called 

 by Dioscorides, Hierobotane, or the sacred plant, 

 and esteemed proper to be hung up in their 

 rooms. The British name Cas gan Cyt brawl, 

 or the Devil's aversion, may be a modern appel- 

 lation, but it is likewise called Y Dderzvenfendi- 

 gaid, the holy oak, which evidently refers to the 

 Druid groves. Pliny informs us, that the 

 Gauls used it in their incantations, as the Ro- 

 mans and Greeks did in their lustrations. Te- 

 rence, in his Andria, shews us the Verbena was 

 placed on altars before the doors of private 

 houses in Athens; and from a passage in 

 Pliny* Ave find the Magi were guilty of the 

 most extravagant superstition about this herb. 

 Strange it is that such a veneration should arise 

 for a plant endued with no perceptible quali- 

 ties ; and stranger still it should spread from 

 the farthest north to the boundaries of India. 

 So general a consent, however, proves that the 

 custom arose before the different nations had lost 

 all communication with each other. 



* Lib. XXV. cap. 9. 



