Stray Leaves from a Border Garden 
pinch fills a flower-vase, I think, very prettily, and is not 
always recognised. I have tried fried Parsley as a vegetable, 
much to the surprise of Cook and Gardener, and very good 
it is. A Parsley-bed, according to an old saying, used to 
be considered the place to find newborn babies, and among 
interesting family records of the Earls of Marchmont, still 
preserved, is the following verse written by a boy of seven 
or eight on the occasion of his elder brother’s birthday : 
This day from parsley-bed I’m sure 
Was dug my elder brother Moore, 
Had Papa dug me up before him, 
So many now would not adore him. 
But, hang it ! he’s but only one, 
And if he trips off I am S r John. 
See “ Marchmont and the Humes of Polwarth ” by one 
of their Descendants, for further details. Persil as the Scots 
used to call Parsley, is very widely considered unlucky, and it 
is especially deemed unlucky to sow it or give plants away, 
though I believe you may steal it with impunity, the reason 
given being that the seed had to go to the infernal regions 
and back ere it could grow. It was used to deck graves 
among the Greeks, and there was a saying “To want parsley,” 
which meant a person was at death’s-door. The Romans 
believed it had the power of rendering the fumes of wine 
innocuous, so they used it in garlands at parties. The 
Greeks also crowned their victors with parsley. In Devon- 
shire there is an idea that, if you transplant parsley, the 
fairy of the parsley-bed will be angered and ill-luck will 
overtake you, and there is a saying, “Where Parsley’s grown 
in the garden there’ll be a death ere the year’s out.” 
It is curious that, long as it has been known in British 
gardens, there is no certain knowledge whence it came 
first. It must have been precious not only to cooks but to 
herbalists too, since there is a lengthy list of diseases it 
vanquishes in my old Herbal, and specially is it powerful 
against “ Poyson and the Bitings of Mad Dogges.” Our 
ancestors would seem to have been much troubled with 
serpents and mad dogs, since there is] hardly a plant 
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