Chapter 37

quamvis semi-hominis vesano gramine foeta

mandragorae pariat flores, moestamque cicutam.
'Semi-human mandrake' goes very well with our legend, and even 'vesanum gramen' may agree with it more closely than appears from the words. Hildegard also in Phys. 2, 102 says: 'mandragora de terra de qua Adam creatus est dilatata est, et propter similitudinem hominis suggestio diaboli huic plus quam aliis herbis insidiatur. et ideo, cum de terra effoditur, mox in salientem fontem per diem et noctem ponatur.' As the French mandagloire stands for mandragore, I conjectured (p. 402) that the fée Maglore may have sprung from Mandagloire; if so, it offers an exact analogy to our Alrûna the wise-woman and alrûna the mandrake, and is not to be despised. I close with an AS. description in Thorpe's Anal. p. 94, probably of the 10-11^th cent., which confirms the dog's participation in the act of gathering: 'þeos wyrt, þe man mandragoram nemneð ..... þonne þû tô hire cymst, þonne ongist þû hî bi þâm (wilt know her by this) þe heo on nihte scîneð ealswâ leoht-fæt (as a lamp). þonne þû hire heáfod ærest geseo (first see her head), þonne bewrît þû hî wel hraðe mid îserne, þy læs heo þe ætfleo (lest she flee thee). hire mægen (main, might) is swâ nicel and swâ mære, þæt heo unclænne man, þonne he tô hire cymeð, wel hraðe forfleon wile. forðy þû hî bewrît, swâ we ær cwædon, mid îserne, and swâ þû scealt onbûtan hî delfan, swâ þû hire mid þâm îserne nâ æt-hrine (touch): ac þû geornlîce scealt mid ylpenbænenon (ivory) stæfe þâ eorðan delfan, and þonne þû hire handa and hire fêt geseo, þonne hundes gewrîð þû hî (tie her to a dog). nim þonne þone oðerne ende, and gewrîð tô ânes swiran (neck), swâ þæt se hund hungrig sî, wurp (throw) him siððan mete tô foran, swâ þæt he hine âhræcan (reach) ne mæge, bûton he mid him þâ wyrte upâbrede.' She shines by night like a lamp, has head, hands and feet, must be bewritten with iron lest she escape, is not to be touched with iron, but dug up with an ivory wand: several things betray a Latin origin (bewrîtan circumscribere). It is to be fastened to the dog's neck instead of his tail; conf. Belg. mus. 5, 114 [Josephus Wars 7, 6, 3: root Baaras pulled up by dog]. Pliny ascribes a 'vim somnificam' to mandragoras.

Sæm. 194a speaks of a svefn-þorn (sleep-thorn) with which Oðinn pricks Brynhild, and she goes to sleep, as Dorn-röschen does in the nursery-tale from the prick of a spindle (p. 419). The thorn-rose has a meaning here, for we still call a mosslike excrescence on the wild rosebush or the whitethorn schlaf-apfel and schlaf-kunz; so that the very name of our sleeping beauty contains a reference to the myth. We also use the simple kuenz (Schm. 2, 314), which can hardly be Kunz the dimin. of Konrad, but is rather conn. with küenzel, küenzen (gathering under the chin). When placed under a sleeper's pillow, he cannot wake till it be removed (9) (see Suppl.).

This 'sleep-apple' is supposed to be produced by a wasp stinging the thorn; equally rootless, the prophetic gall-nut on oaks originates in such a puncture, Sup. I, 968; Ital. gallozza, Neap. gliantra, Pentam. 2, 1: 'tre gliantre mascole.' Growths that could not be traced to seed and root, as probably that bird's nest on p. 973, seemed miraculous and endued with magic power: gall-nuts are hung on the kitchen roofbeam to protect the house.

The mistel (mistletoe) was accounted specially sacred, being supposed to have fallen from heaven on the boughs of magnificent trees like the oak and ash. OHG. mistil (not fem. mistila), Graff 2, 890; MHG. mistel, 'jâmers mistel,' Martina 161d. With a shoot of this plant the god Baldr was shot dead: when Frigg was exacting an oath from all other plants, this seemed to her too young: 'vex viðar teinûngr einn fyrir austan Valhöll, sâ er Mistilteinn kallaðr, sâ þôtti mer ûngr at krefja eiðsins,' Sn. 64; and the Völuspâ sings of it thus, Sæm. 6b:

stôð umvaxinn völlom hærri

miór ok miök fagur Mistilteinn;
grown high above the field stood the delicate fair mistle-shoot; teinn is a branch shot up, Goth. táins, OHG. zein, and we may safely assume a Goth. mistilatáins, OHG. mistilzein. Now in AS. we find it mistiltâ, which may easily be a corruption of mistiltân, and the agreement of this with the Eddic mistilteinn would be welcome and weighty; yet 'tâ' may be right after all, and is supported by the Engl. being mistletoe (but also misseldine). In Sweden this evergreen parasite is said to be usually a foot or two feet long, but sometimes to reach the length of three ells (Geijer's Häfd. 1, 330). F. Magn. lex. 512 says, in Vestergötland it is called ve-spelt, holy spelt, triticum sacrum. A plant associated with the death of one of their greatest and best-beloved gods must have been supremely sacred to all of Teutonic blood; and yet this opinion of its holiness was shared by Celtic nations. Pliny 16, 44 [95] assures us of the Celtic belief: 'Non est omittenda in ea re et Galliarum admiratio. Nihil habent druidae (ita suos appellant magos) visco, et arbore in qua gignatur (si modo sit robur), sacratius. Jam per se roborum eligunt lucos, nec ulla sacra sine ea fronde conficiunt, et inde appellati quoque interpretatione Graeca possint druidae videri. Enimvero quidquid adnascatur illis, e coelo missum putant, signumque esse electae ab ipso deo arboris. Est autem id rarum admodum inventu, et repertum magna religione petitur, et ante omnia sexta luna (quae principia mensium annorumque his facit) et seculi post tricesimum annum, quia jam virium abunde habeat nec sit sui dimidia. Omnia sanantem appellantes suo vocabulo, sacrificiis rite sub arbore praeparatis, duos admovent candidi coloris tauros, quorum cornua tunc primum vinciantur. (10) Sacerdos candida veste cultus arborem scandit, falce aurea demetit, candido id excipitur sago. Tum deinde victimas immolant, precantes ut suum donum deus prosperum faciat his quibus dederit. Foecunditatem eo poto dari cuicunque animalium sterili arbitrantur, contra venena omnia esse remedio. Tanta gentium in rebus frivolis plerumque religio est.' This elegant description is preceded by other statements, of which I will select one here and there: 'Visci tria genera. Namque in abiete ac larice stelin dicit Euboea nasci, hyphear Arcadia, viscum autem in quercu, robore, pruno silvestri, terebintho, nec aliis arboribus adnasci, plerique. Copiosissimum in quercu, quod dryos hyphear....... Adjiciunt discrimen, visco in his quae folia amittant et ipsi decidere, contra inhaerere nato in aeterna fronde. (11) Omnino autem satum nullo modo nascitur, nec nisi per alvum avium redditum, maxime palumbis ac turdis: haec est natura, ut nisi maturatum in ventre avium non proveniat. Altitudo ejus non excedit cubitalem, semper frutectosi ac viridis. Mas fertilis, femina sterilis; aliquando non fert.' ---- With us too a thrush is called mistler, Schm. 2, 645 (MHG. mistelære ?), Engl. mistlebird; and in some other of our myths the conveyance of the seed by birds enhances the holiness of the virgin plant (p. 969): there is no human hand at work, and the finger of God is manifest. Viscum is the Fr. gui, and to this day the veneration for the plant is preserved in the New-year's gratulation aguilanneuf (p. 755). In Wales they hang mistletoe over the doors at Christmas, and call it (says Davies) pren awyr, merry tree, pren uchelvar, tree of the high summit, pren puraur, tree of pure gold; the second name recalls the 'völlum hærri' of the Edda. But the usual names given for mistletoe are Wel. olhiach, Bret. ollyiach, Ir. uileiceach, Gael. uileice, i.e. all-healing [Pliny's omnia sanans], from 'ol, uile,' universal (p. 1213). A Breton lay (Barzas breiz 1, 58. 100) makes Merlin at early morn go fetch the high branch on the oak (warhuel, huelvar ann derwen). Our old herbals divide mistletoes into those of the oak, hazel and peartree (eichen-mistel, heselin-m., birnbäumin-m.), and none of them must be let touch the ground; some, set in silver, they hang round children's necks. In Prussian Samland it is called wispe (which looks like viscum, gui, but mistel itself is often confounded with mispel = medlar); it is common on birch, cherry and lime trees, on the hazel it is rare and wonderful. It grows in a straight line out of the trunk, and between its smooth evergreen willow-like leaves it bears berries silvery-white, like peas or small nuts. Where the hazel has a wispe, there is sure to be a treasure hidden (Reusch no. 10). Among Slavs I find the names Boh. melj, gmelj, oméli, Russ. oméla, Pol. iemiel; Lith. amalai, Lett. ahmals; but no legends (see Suppl.).

To viscum may be added two other druidical herbs. Pliny 24, 11 [62-3]: 'Selago legitur sine ferro, dextra manu per tunicam, qua sinistra exuitur velut a furante, candida veste vestito pureque lotis nudis pedibus, sacro facto priusquam legatur pane vinoque; fertur in mappa nova: hanc contra omnem perniciem habendam prodidere druidae Gallorum. ----- Iidem Samolum herbam nominavere nascentem in humidis, et hanc sinistra manu legi a jejunis contra morbos suum boumque, nec respicere legentem, nec alibi quam in canali deponere, ibique conterere poturis.' The mode of gathering selago is peculiar: it is to be picked with the right hand, not bare, but covered with the tunic (conf. p. 971), then to be drawn out stealthily with the left. In Davies's Br. myth. 280 it is said to be the herb the Welsh call grâs Duw (gratia Dei). Villemarqué thinks it is the aour géoten (aurea herba) of Breton songs 1, 58. 96, which you must pull up in the meadows before sunrise, barefoot and bareheaded; it shines far off like gold. It is rarely to be found, and only by holy persons. Some take it for our bärlapp (lycopodium). Samolus is said to be anemone pulsatilla; Davies p. 274 gives it Welsh name as gwlydd.

Our baldrian is a corruption of valeriana, and has nothing to do with Baldr, after whom a very different herb, the anthemis cotula, was named Baldrs brâ (brow), Sw. Baldersbrå, abbrev. Barbro. But the valerian has a mythical name too, Velands-urt, Wayland's wort (p. 377), and its healing virtues are in high repute. The Servians call it odolián (from odoliéti to overpower), Boh. odolèn; and among the Servian 'Vilinen pièsme' (songs taught by the vila herself) is a saw (Vuk, new ed. 1, 149): 'Da zna zhenska glava, Shto zh' odolián trava, Svagda bi ga brala, U pas ushivala, I za se nosila'; if woman but knew what is herb odolián, she would always get it, in her girdle sew it, and about her wear it. The vila warns us not to neglect this precious herb (see Suppl.).

Henbane (bilsen-kraut), OHG. pilisa, belisa (hyos-cyamos), see pp. 593. 1198, and Suppl.

Sowthistle (eberwurz, boarwort), OHG. epurwurz, the carlina acaulis, Carls-distel; growing on hills, close to the ground without a stalk, with silver-white unfading leaves. During a pestilence, Charles the Great had gone to sleep laden with care, when an angel appeared to him in a dream, and bade him shoot an arrow in the air: whatever herb it lighted upon was sovereign against the plague. Charles in the morning shot the arrow, and its point stuck in a sowthistle: they used it for medicine, and the plague disappeared. He that carries this plant about him, let him run ever so long, will never tire; and he can take all the strength out of a companion that walks with him, hence they used to tie some to their horses in a race; when the same was done unperceived to one of a married couple, the other was sure to waste away and die. Sowthistle was also nailed inside the swine-trough, that the pigs might eat over it, whence its name is supposed to have come (W. Menzel's Literaturbl. 1844. pp. 9. 10). The name 'eberwurz' probably rests on other grounds, but 'carlina' seems to be formed on the legend. King Charles often had things told him by angels in dreams, and bad dreams come of fighting with boars; the herb may have healed the gash inflicted by the tusk of a boar (see Suppl.).

Betonica. Pliny 25, 46: 'Vettones in Hispania eam quae Vettonica dicitur in Gallia, in Italia autem serratula, a Graecis cestros aut psycho-morphon (-trophon?), ante cunctas laudatissima. Exit anguloso caule, cubitorum duûm, a radice spargens folia fere lapathi, serrata, semine purpureo ........ tantum gloriae habet, ut domus in qua sata sit tuta existimetur a piaculis omnibus ....... Morsibus imponitur vettonica, cui vis tanta perhibetur, ut inclusae circulo ejus serpentes ipsae sese interimant flagellando.' Fr. bétoine, MHG. batónie: 'altiu wîp grabent patôni,' MsH. 3, 193b. 'sô gênt etelîche mit bœsen batânien umb,' Berth. 58. 'ettlich kundent patoniken graben,' Superst. G, 1. 41. 'die lêr ich batônien graben,' Aw. 2, 56. An Italian proverb recommends the purchase of betony at any price: 'venda la tonica, e compra la bettonica.' A description in Martina 27a (Diut. 2, 129), 'diu gelwe batênie hol,' seems to contradict the aforesaid purple (of the seed only?). In Switzerland badönikli is our fluhblume, cowslip, and herdsmen bring it home for their sweethearts off the Alp, Stald. 1, 124. 386. Apparently several kinds are to be distinguished: Pol. bukwica, Boh. brkwice, is by turns betonica, plantago and primula. The Anglo-Saxons called betonica biscopwyrt, from which its sacredness may be inferred (see Suppl.).

Madalgêr stands in OHG. glosses for basilicum, in herbals for senecio as well. The proverb ran, 'Modelgeer ist aller wurzel ein eer.' In the Westerrich, when a disease breaks out among swine, they chop some of this root in with the pigs' wash, muttering a short prayer: it keeps the schelm from attacking them. As Heime's father in our heroic legend is called Madelgêr (p. 387), likewise a mermaid's son who puts on a cloak of darkness (Morolt 40-1); a mythic significance in the plant's name becomes credible (see Suppl.).

In the same way I connect Mangold, lapathum, beet, with that ancient name of the giant-maiden who could grind gold (p. 531).

OHG. faram filix, MHG. varm, varn, AS. fearn, Engl. fern. Pliny 27, 9 [55] tells nothing mythical of the filix. Hildegard's Phys. 2, 91: 'in loco illo ubi crescit, diabolus illusiones suas raro exercet; et domum et locum in quo est, diabolus evitat et abhorret, et fulgura et tonitrua et grando ibi raro cadunt.' A Herbal says: 'farnkraut is hard to destroy, without ye stub it up on the day of John's beheading, then doth farn perish. It seems to bear neither flower nor seed; he that will gather fern-seed must be bold and able to daunt the devil. He shall go after it on St. John's night before daybreak, light a fire, and spread cloths or broad leaves under the same, so may he take and keep of the seed.' Many fasten fresh fern over the house-door, then all goes well as far as the whip on the waggon reaches (about five paces), Sup. I, 988. In Redeker's Westf. sagen no. 46 we find some details: Fernseed makes one invisible, but is difficult to get at: it ripens only between 12 and 1 on Midsummer night, and then falls off directly, and is gone. A man, who on that night happened to be looking for a lost foal, passed through a field where fernseed was ripening, and some fell in his shoes (like the flax-pods, p. 962). Coming home in the morning, he walked into the house, and sat down: he thought it strange that his wife and family took no notice of him. 'Well,' says he, 'I have not found the foal.' All those in the room looked startled: they heard the man's voice, but nothing of him could they see. The wife began calling him by name, so he came and stood in the middle of the room, and said, 'What are you shouting for, when here I stand before you?' The terror was now greater than before; till the man, feeling something hurt his feet, as if shingle had got in his shoes, pulled them off and shook them out; and there he stood visible to every eye. This is the wünschel-sâmen des varmen (p. 974). Conrad of Würzburg in a song, MsH. 3, 453a:

Het ich sâmen von dem varn,

den würfe ich dar den scheiden,

daz si 'n verslünden, ê mîn dienest von ir solde scheiden.




Notes: