Vulnerary Plants." Some empiric surgeons in Scotland take a journey to the Picts' wall every summer to gather vulnerary plants, which they say grow plentifully there, and are very effectual, being planted by the Romans for surgical uses.'

Ghost-Seers. (Oral).—According to a popular superstition, people born between twelve and one see ghosts.

Saint John's Wort and Vervain.-Among the peasantry of the Northern countries the devil is believed to hold these herbs in abhorrence, from its bearing the name and being a sacred attribute of Saint John the Baptist. Sir Walter Scott says, "I remember a popular rhyme supposed to be addressed to a young woman by the devil, who attempted to seduce her, in the shape of a handsome young man : Gin you wish to be leman mine,

Do off the Saint John's Wort and the Vervine."

By his repugnance to these sacred plants his mistress discovered the cloven foot."t

Being thus potent against the devil himself, it was of course irresistible when employed against his subordinate agents, the witches. Accordingly we read in Drayton, "The night-shade strows to work him ill, Therewith the vervain and her dill,

That hindreth witches of their will."

The Saint John's Wort was also called Hypericon,‡ from

destinatum, cum de fuga coepisset cogitare, priusquam a periculo se abstraheret, zona a matre strangulatum." Joannis Pierii Valeriani HIEROGLYPHICA, lib. xx. cap. xix. p. 203, D. folio, Lugduni. 1610. See also Diodorus Siculus (lib. iii.) who tells this same story of a mother strangling her son with her own girdle upon his attempting to fly after the messenger of death had been sent to him.

* Burton's Admirable Curiosities, p. 38, 12mo. London. 1737. Scott's Poetical Works, vol. iv. p. 277.

"Hypericum à Gr. VπEρIKòv quoniam existimantur folia habere Plusquam viginti foramina.”—“ Perforata, quia si inspiciamus herbam

two Greek words, Tɛρ and oσi,—that is, above twenty -because the leaf is supposed to have above twenty small perforations, which may be seen if it be held up to the light. Amongst the dabblers in magic it had the name of fuga demonum-demon expeller-from its imaginary power of keeping off the devils; but to be efficacious it should be gathered on Saint John's Eve. It is thus described in Pliny-" Hypericon, which some call Chamæpitys, others Corion. This herbe shooteth forth many branches, which be small and slender, of a cubit in length, and red withall; in leafe it resembleth rue; the smell is quicke, hot, and piercing; the seed, which it beareth within certain cods, is blacke, and the same ripeneth together with barley. The nature of the seed is astringent; it doth incrassat and thicken humours, and stoppeth a laske.”*

The anti-demoniacal character of vervain is no doubt a relick of the pagan times, for amongst the Romans verbena, or vervine, signified the holy herb gathered from the sacred place of the Capitol, with which the priests and heralds were crowned when about to make treaties, or declare war. By a corruption of the word it came in time to be used for any sacred bough, such as the myrtle, the olive, or the laurel.†

hanc inter lucem et oculos nostros mediam, ejus folia quasi perforata apparent." Vide Minshew, sub voce Saint John's Wort.

A laske is a diarrhea. Having given the above translation from quaint old Philemon Holland (vol. ii. p. 255, fol. London. 1601) it may be as well to place by its side the original-" Eadem præstat hypericon, quam alii chamæpytin, alii corion appellant, oleraceo frutice, tenui, cubitali, rubente, folio rutæ, odore acri, semine in siliqua nigro maturescente cum hordeo. Natura semini spissandi; alvum sistit, &c." C. Plinii Sec. Nat. Hist. lib. xxvi. cap. 53.

+ Servius in his comments on the twelfth book of Virgil, verse 120, (no date, page, or signature) says "propriè est herba sacra sumpta de loco sacro Capitolii, q coronabatur fæciales et pater patratus fœdera

Fig-tree Candles.-" Many fig-trees are found under ground by the river Wever, which the people imagine buried there ever since Noah's flood. They cut pieces of such wooll (wood) small, and use them for candles, which give a good light." The author adds, "that such woollen (wooden) candles have long snuff, and yet, which is a wonder, in falling down do no harm, tho' they drop into tow, flax, or the like.*"

Prognostics by Water.-"In the parish of North Taunton, near a house called Bath, is a pit, but in the winter a pool, not maintained by any spring, but by the fall of rain-water, and dry in summer, of which it is observed (saith Dr. Fuller) that before the death of any prince, or other accident of importance, it will, tho' in a hot and dry season, overflow its banks, and so continue 'till that which is prognosticated is fulfilled.”+

Numbers, Numbering. The virtue, which Touchstone so zealously maintains to lurk in that little monosyllable, if, is much inferior to the qualities, which at one time were supposed to reside in numbers, and that not only by the vulgar, but by very sage folks, who indited huge folios for the benefit of the unenlightened, and who were therefore admitted as of right into the guild of philosophers.

One of the most popular superstitions connected with figures was a belief in the impossibility, or in the danger, of counting certain objects-druidical monuments for the most part, though sometimes any steps or columns were supposed to be under the like spell. Stonehenge had a superstitious belief of this kind attached to it. The

facturi vel bella inducturi; abusivè tamen etiam verbenas vocamus omnes frōdes sacratas, ut est laurus, oliva, vel myrtus." * Burton's Admirable Curiosities, p. 24.

Ibid. p. 46.

anonymous writer of An Account of Stonehenge and the Barrows round it,* observes, in the dignified tone of a grave antiquarian, "another instance of vulgar folly is the notion that all the wonder of the work consists in the difficulty of counting the stones, and with this task the infinite numbers of people, who visit this place, busy themselves. This seems to be the remains of superstition, not yet gone out of people's heads since Druid time."

The last remark is a mere gratuitous supposition, flung out at hazard, and without a single proof offered in support of it. Any certain information on the subject

would have been highly desirable.

Another instance of this superstition may be found at Salkeld in Cumberland in the case of Long Meg and her daughters, a very goodly family, being no less than sixtyfive in number, according to the report of those, who in defiance of the general belief have had the temerity to count them. These ladies are huge masses of stone, most of which are yet standing upright, and crown an eminence on the river Eden, about half a mile north of Penrith, in the Parish of Addingham. They are rough and unhewn, and form nearly an exact circle of about three hundred and fifty paces in circumference, some being of grey, or blue, limestone, while others are flint, and the most of them granite. Of those that are standing, many measure from twelve to fifteen feet in girt, and ten feet in height, but others are of a much inferior size. The most remarkable of Meg's family is an upright column on the southern side of the circle. It seems to be naturally square, if such a thing be possible, without any help from art, and is formed of the red free

* P. 4. 12mo. London. No Date.

stone, which abounds in this part of the country. In girt it is nearly fifteen feet; in height it towers much above its sisters, being eighteen feet high, and while each of its angles corresponds with a point of the compass, one faces the circle, as if looking upon it sidewise. In that part of the round, which is nearest to the column, four large blocks form a square, seeming to indicate that they once served to support a table-stone, or else had enclosed a space more holy than the rest. On the north, east, and west, the appearance of an entrance is marked out by two large stones, with a greater interval between them than between any others in the circle. Meg herself is said to weigh about sixteen stones and a half, though Hutchinson, from whom I derive that somewhat doubtful piece of information, has forgotten to state upon what occasion her granite ladyship was put into the scales, and her weight ascertained with so much nicety. Perhaps the result was got at in the form of a geometric problem; as, thus ;-given the height and breadth of any damsel, how much will she weigh?

Sorry am I to be forced to add,-but truth demands it-that Meg and her progeny were no better than they should be. Not to mince the matter, they were witches, and hence on presuming to visit the place where they now lie, and which happened to be sacred, they were metamorphosed into granite as a punishment for their intrusion. It must, however, be confessed that no great reliance is to be placed in the numbers that I have assigned to the family on the authority of the county historian,* inasmuch as it is impossible to count them, and of the many persons who have made the trial no

Hutchinson in his "History of Cumberland," vol. i. p. 226, gives a long account of these druidical remains.