198 



THE YOUNG 



NATURALIST. 



invaluable for the cure of certain 

 diseases. Hence we have Herb Mar- 

 garet, Maudlin, Maghet, Mayweed, 

 Moondaisy, and a host of others, all 

 daisy-shaped plants, with similar re- 

 puted properties. In pagan times it 

 was dedicated to Diana. On the Con- 

 tinent especially the daisy is held in 

 high esteem as a divination plant in 

 love affairs ; and in some countries it 

 is believed that if you chew three daisies 

 after a tooth has been extracted you 

 will have no more toothache. In Scot- 

 land the daisy is always called the 

 " gowan," which is by some derived 

 from the Dutch gulden — golden — and 

 primarily applied to yellow flowered 

 plants, as the marsh marigolds — yellow 

 go wans ; the dandelion — horse go wans; 

 the globe flower — witches gowans, &c. 

 As it is so common a north country 

 word some refer it to the Celtic gugan, 

 a bud or flower ; and an even more 

 appropriate derivation is from the Cel- 

 tic guen — beautiful — which the daisy 

 pre-eminently is. Thus Burns, in 

 what has been characterised as the 

 finest love song in any language, epito- 

 mises and sums up in a single line the 

 whole charms and graces of a Scottish 

 rural maid, when he sings : — 



" Her face is fair, her heart is true, 



As spotless as she's bonnie O ; 

 The opening gowan weet wi' dew, 



Nae purer is than Nannie 0." 



The Botanic name Bellis also means 

 beautiful, and peremis refers to the 

 constant long continued succession of 



its flowers. There is any amount of 

 fairy lore clustered round the daisy ; 

 thus not only is it used as a cradle in 

 which the tiny green elves can rock 

 and soothe their infants to sleep, but 

 in the mimic tournaments of the pigmy 

 warriors a tuft of daisies was placed 

 in the seat of honour to which obei- 

 sance was made by the victor, in the 

 same way as the Queen of Beauty was 

 honoured in the palmy days of 

 chivalry by the the knights and squires 

 of our own race. 



The habit of the daisy of folding up 

 its starlike petals and going to sleep at 

 night, has been made the occasion of 

 some of the choicest poetical imagery. 

 Here is what one of the foremost prose 

 poets of the day has written : " The 

 daisies were all asleep, spotting the 

 green grass with stars of carmine, for 

 their closed red tips, like the finger 

 poiQts of two fairy hands, tenderly 

 joined together, pointed up in little 

 cones, to keep the yellow stars warm 

 within that they might shine bright 

 when the great star of day came to look 

 for them. ■'^ And the Ettrick Shep- 

 herd, rugged and uncouth as he often 

 was, homely in speech yet ever pure 

 and honest in sentiment, with a robust 

 manliness which smells of the heather, 

 in one of the best, most popular of his 

 pastoral songs 



" When the Blewart bears a pearl, 

 And the Daisy turns a pea. 



And the bonnie Lucken gowan 

 Has faulded up her.e'e — 



