Martinmas to Ladyday 
beautifully sifted earth I hastily began to remove to a 
border. 
“ There it will be useful,” I said ; “ here it is a mistake, 
on the grass.” “ What a pity! ” said Wise Four-year old. 
“ Mr. Mole did not know where to put it. I think we 
must tell him. Of course he did not see where he was putting 
it, as he is blind ! ” In Gloucestershire molehills were 
called “ nootie stumps.” I wonder if this word has anything 
to do with the Shetland word noup , meaning a round- 
headed eminence, or with the Icelandic knaus , a lump of 
earth, or the Anglo-Saxon knoop or cnoep , meaning a 
button or round knob, which survives here in the Lothians 
as knoost, meaning a large lump. There was an old 
belief once upon a time, as the fairy tales say, that mole- 
hillocks were for the lambs to rest upon. But though I 
have seen many lambs of all sizes in the field with the 
molehills, never yet have I seen a lamb using a hill as a 
pillow or seat, or the “ moudies ” asking them to sit 
down ! In Fife they are called “ mowdie hoops.” Hoop 
means a “ heap ” in old Teutonic. Some people say the dear 
“ moudies ” eat wireworms, and therefore should not be 
destroyed, but the gardeners and gamekeepers say 
“vermin.” What a holocaust of the poor little things I saw 
in a field the other day ; the little black velvet bodies with 
tiny outspread hands looked so pathetic ! I knew a lady 
who had a moleskin jacket, but though very soft it was not 
very pretty, as the unavoidable joins were too obvious. 
I found a pure white periwinkle the other day among 
the blue ones — Vinca minor alba. Like most albinos, 
more curious than pretty. Long ago the periwinkle used 
to be called the “ ivy of the ground.” A rather nice term, I 
think. Vinca minor is, no doubt, Chaucer’s “ fresh pervincke 
rich of hew.” Nothing equals the blue stars, to my mind. 
I want to try and introduce here the large grey periwinkle 
( Vinca media), which grows so thickly in damp shady corners 
near old ruins in the South of France, and blows at 
Christmastide. 
- In Tuscany, periwinkles are called “ death flowers,” being 
17 B 
