It cannot be doubted that these rites have been transmitted from heathenism. Theocritus mentions them as practiced by the Greeks in his time. For he introduces Samoetha as using similar enchantments, partly for punishing, and partly for regaining her faithless lover.
But strew the salt, and say in angry tones, "I scatter Delphis', perjured Delphis' bones." — First Delphis injured me, he raised my flame, And now I burn this bough in Delphis' name; As this doth blaze, and break away in fume, How soon it takes, let Delphis' flesh consume. Iynx, restore my false, my perjured swain, And force him back into my arms again. As this devoted wax melts o'er the fire, Let Mindian Delphis melt in warm desire! Idylliums, p. 12, 13.
Samoetha burns the bough in the name of her false lover, and terms the wax devoted. With this the more modern ritual of witchcraft corresponded. The name of the person, represented by the image, was invoked. For according to the narrative given concerning the witches of Pollock-shaws, having bound the image on a spit, they "turned it before the fire, — saying, as they turned it, Sir George Maxwell, Sir George Maxwell; and that this was expressed by all of them." Glanvil's Sadducismus, p. 391.
According to Grilland, the image was baptized in the name of Beelzebub. Malleus, ut. sup., p. 229.
There is nothing analogous to the Grecian rite, mentioned by Theocritus, of strewing salt. For Grilland asserts that, in the festivals of the witches, salt was never presented. Ibid., p. 215. It was perhaps excluded from their infernal rites as having been so much used as a sacred symbol.
The following are among the twenty-eight "singular vertues" attributed by Butler to Honey: ".... It breedeth good blood, it prolongeth old age . . . . yea the bodies of the dead being embalmed with honey have been thereby preserved from putrefaction. And Athenaeus doth witness it to be as effectual for the living, writing out of Lycus, that the Cyrneans, or inhabitants of Corsica, were therefore long-lived, because they did dailie vse to feed on honey, whereof they had abundance: and no marvaile: seeing it is so soveraigne a thing, and so many waies available for man's health, as well being outwardly as inwardly applied. It is drunke against the bite of a serpent or mad dogs: and it is good for them having eaten mushrooms, or drunke popy, etc."
In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times, there are two chapters devoted to the "Vertues of Honey."
There is a story, that a man once came to Mohammed, and told him that his brother was afflicted with a violent pain in his belly; upon which the prophet bade him give him some honey. The fellow took his advice; but soon after coming again, told him that the medicine had done his brother no manner of service: Mohammed answered, "Go and give him more honey, for God speaks truth, and thy brother's belly lies." And the dose being repeated, the man, by God's mercy, was immediately cured.
In the sixteenth chapter of the Koran, Mohammed has likewise mentioned honey as a medicine for men.
Athenaeus tells us that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age, and when he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmophorian festival came round, and the women of his household besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might not be debarred from their share of the festivities, was persuaded and ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him: and in this way he lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days after, when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Democritus, Athenaeus adds, had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a man, who had asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey and his outward man with oil. Bread and honey was the chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who says that those who ate this for breakfast were free from disease all their lives.
"The gall of a vulture," says Moufet, quoting Galen, in Eaporist, "mingled with the juice of horehound (twice as much in weight as the gall is) and two parts of honey cures the suffusion of the eyes. Otherwise he mingles one part of the gall of the sea-tortoise, and four times as much honey, and anoints the eyes with it. Serenus prescribes such a receipt to cause one to be quick-sighted:
Mingle Hybloean honey with the gall Of Goats, 'tis good to make one see withall."
We are told in the German Ephemerides, that a young country girl, having eaten a great deal of honey, became so inebriated with it, that she slept the whole day, and talked foolishly the day following.
Bevan, in his work on the Honey-Bee, mentions the following instances of a curious use to which propolis is sometimes put by the Bees: A snail, says he, having crept into one of Mr. Reaumur's hives early in the morning, after crawling about for some time, adhered, by means of its own slime, to one of the glass panes. The Bees, having discovered the snail, surrounded it, and formed a border of propolis round the verge of its shell, and fastened it so securely to the glass that it became immovable.
Forever closed the impenetrable door; It naught avails that in its torpid veins Year after year, life's loitering spark remains.
Evans.
Maraldi, another eminent Apiarian, states that a snail without a shell having entered one of his hives, the Bees, as soon as they observed it, stung it to death; after which, being unable to dislodge it, they covered it all over with an impervious coat of propolis.
For soon in fearless ire, their wonder lost, Spring fiercely from the comb the indignant host, Lay the pierced monster breathless on the ground, And clap in joy their victor pinions round: While all in vain concurrent numbers strive To heave the slime-girt giant from the hive — Sure not alone by force instinctive swayed, But blest with reason's soul-directing aid, Alike in man or bee, they haste to pour, Thick, hard'ning as it falls, the flaky shower; Embalmed in shroud of glue the mummy lies, No worms invade, no foul miasmas rise.
Evans.
Xenophon tells us that all the soldiers, who ate of the honey-combs, found in the villages on the mountains of the Colchians, lost their senses, and were seized with such violent vomiting and purging, that none of them were able to stand upon their legs: that those who ate but little, were like men very drunk, and those who ate much, like madmen, and some like dying persons. In this condition, this writer adds, great numbers lay upon the ground, as if there had been a defeat, and a general sorrow prevailed. The next day, they all recovered their senses, about the same hour they were seized; and, on the third and fourth days, they got up as if they had taken physic.
Pliny accounts for this accident by saying there is found in that country a kind of honey, called from its effects, Phaenomenon, that is, that those who eat it are seized with madness. He adds, that the common opinion is that this honey is gathered from the flowers of a plant called Rhododendros, which is very common in those parts. Tournefort thinks the modern Laurocerasus is the Rhododendros of Pliny, from the fact that the people of that country, at the present day, believe the honey that is gathered from its flowers will produce the effects described by Xenophon.
The missionary Moffat in South Africa found some poisonous honey, which he unknowingly ate, but with no serious consequences. It was several days, however, before he got rid of a most unpleasant sensation in his head and throat. The plant from which the honey had been gathered was an Euphorbia.
"In Podolia," says the chronicler Hollinshed, "which is now subject to the King of Poland, their hives (of Bees) and combes are so abundant, that huge bores, overturning and falling into them, are drowned in the honie, before they can recover & find the meanes to come out."
Honey was offered up to the Sun by the ancient Peruvians.
Dr. Sparrman has described a Hottentot dance, which he calls the Bee-dance. It is in imitation of a swarm of Bees; every performer as he jumps around making a buzzing noise.
"To have a Bee in one's bonnet" is a Scottish proverbial phrase about equivalent to the English, "To have a maggot in one's head" — to be hair-brained. Kelly gives this with an additional word: "There's a Bee in your bonnet-case." In Scotland, too, it is said of a confused or stupefied man, that his "head is in the Bees." These proverbial expressions were also in vogue in England.
The following beautiful epigram, on a Bee inclosed in amber, is from the pen of Martial: "The Bee is inclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaeton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the Bee itself would have desired such a death.
The Bee inclosed, and through the amber shown, Seems buried in the juice that was her own. So honored was a life in labor spent: Such might she wish to have her monument."
The Septuagint has the following eulogium on the Bee in Prov. vi. 8, which is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures: "Go to the Bee, and learn how diligent she is, and what a noble work she produces, whose labors kings and private men use for their health; she is desired and honored by all, and though weak in strength, yet since she values wisdom, she prevails."
In Spain Bees are in great estimation; and this is evinced by the ancient proverb:
Abeja y oveja, Y piedra que traveja, Y pendola tras oreja, Y parte en la Igreja, Desea a su hija, la vieja
The best wishes of a Spanish mother to her son are, Bees, sheep, millstones, a pen behind the ear, and a place in the church.
The following anecdote in the history of the Humble-bee (Bombus) is from the account of Josselyn of his voyages to New England, printed in 1674: "Near upon twenty years since there lived an old planter near Blackpoint, who on a Sunshine day about one of the clock lying upon a green bank not far from his house, charged his Son, a lad of 12 years of age, to awaken him when he had slept two hours; the old man falls asleep, and lying upon his back gaped with his mouth wide open enough for a Hawke to fly into it; after a little while the lad sitting by spied a Humble-bee creeping out of his Father's mouth, which taking wing flew quite out of sight, the hour as the lad guessed being come to awaken his Father, he jagged him and called aloud Father, Father, it is two o'clock, but all would not rouse him, at last he sees the Humble-bee returning, who lighted upon the sleeper's lip and walked down as the lad conceived into his belly, and presently he awaked."
The following, on the different species of Humble-bees, is one of the popular rhymes of Scotland:
The todler-tyke has a very gude byke, And sae has the gairy Bee; But weel's me on the little red-doup, The best o' a' the three.