After this quotation Dr. Masters proceeds to criticise the Jesuitic figure, for he says Parkinson gives an excellent figure of Passiflora incarnata, "but he seems to have overlooked the fact that 'the Jesuites' figure of the Maracoc,' as copied by him, does not represent P. incarnata at all, but some other species, more nearly resembling Passiflora glandulosa, of which it has the simple leaves and the glandular footstalks. Certainly the flower in this wonderful specimen is a 'make up.' Supposing the 'corona' of threads to represent the crown of thorns, and the stamens the five nails, the Jesuit artist has just reversed their natural position; the five stamens—nails—are at the base of the column, while a terribly material crown of thorns occupies the proper place of the stamens at the top of the column. The three stigmas, too, are certainly unusually like spear-heads, so that there can be no question that Aldinus was quite correct when he stated that with the aid of a little straining of the imagination the emblems of the Passion might be as well found in a great many other flowers. It must also be remembered that no two of the older authors agree, one with the other, as to the precise significance of the several parts. By some the coronet is the type of the crown of thorns, while others see in it the 'parted vesture.' The ovary is for some the sponge dipped in gall; the stamens represent with some the nails, with others the five wounds, each author giving a slightly different version; and Ferrari compares the 'column' to the pillar to which Christ was attached, and not to the cross, because the gentle nature of the flower did not admit of its reproducing the emblem of the gibbet!"
I saw him as he mused one day Beneath a forest bower, With clasp’d hands stand, and upturn’d eyes, Before a Passion flower; Exclaiming with a fervent joy, “I have found the Passion flower!”
The passion of our blessed Lord, With all his pangs and pain, Set forth within a beauteous flower, In shape and colours plain. Up, I will forth into the world And take this flower with me, To preach the death of Christ to all As it was preached to me.
The gathering of willow catkins on Palm Sunday is the remains of a custom of the early Church in remembrance of the palm branches strewed in the way of Christ as he went up to Jerusalem. Sprigs of boxwood are still used in Catholic countries, and the willow collected on Palm Sunday is called palm by many who gather it. Why the willow should have come into use for such a purpose, has been explained in various ways. Thus, "because willow was in ancient days a badge of mourning, as may be collected from the several expressions of Virgil, where the nymphs and herdsmen are introduced sitting under a willow mourning their loves." This is hardly satisfactory, because the original palm branches were not emblems of mourning, but of triumph. A less elaborate reasoning is that "these seem to have been selected as substitutes for the real palm, because they are generally the only things, at this season, which can be easily procured, in which the power of vegetation can be discovered." Box was evidently in use in this country in the middle of the sixteenth century and it is possible that the use of box was discontinued on the plea that it was a Romish superstition; although the bearing of palms was declared in 1536 "not to be contemned and cast away;" yet in Stow's Chronicle (1548) it is stated that "this yeere the ceremony of bearing palmes on Palme Sonday was left off, and not used." The ceremony of "blessing the box" is still continued in some of the countries of the continent. Another, and more humble plant, a kind of clover (Medicago echinus), found in the Levant, is held in reverence as a supposed memento of the Passion, with the symbol of the wounds on the leaves, and the crown of thorns in its spiny fruits.
- See "Gardener's Chronicle" for a résumé of a sermon on one of these occasions, in which the symbolism of the box is insisted upon, April 19, 1873, p. 543.
Fig. 88.—Passion Flower (Passiflora cincinnata). "Gardener's Chronicle."
<!-- image -->Fig. 87.—Jesuitic Maracoc, after Parkinson.
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Fig. 89. — Medicago echinus. — "Gardener's Chronicle."
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Of other customs which remain as simple ceremonies, with little meaning, it may safely be predicated that they had in past times a mystic association, now forgotten. The use of holly, ivy, and mistletoe, as Christmas decorations, are of this kind, in the latter case with a date anterior to the introduction of Christianity. Whatever may be its position now, the mistletoe was in former times a mystic plant; and, as Schouw says, "It is not a matter of surprise that a plant of such peculiar aspect, and which occurs in such a remarkable position as the mistletoe, should have awakened the attention of various races, and exerted influence over their religious ideas. It played an especially important part among the Gauls. The oak was sacred with them; their priests abode in oak forests; oak boughs and oak leaves were used in every religious ceremony, and their sacrifices were made beneath an oak tree; but the mistletoe, when it grew upon the oak, was peculiarly sacred, and regarded as a divine gift. It was gathered, with great ceremony, on the sixth day after the first new moon of the year: two white oxen, which were then for the first time placed in yoke, were brought beneath the tree; the sacrificing priest (Druid), clothed in white garments, ascended it, and cut off the mistletoe with a golden sickle; it was caught in a white cloth held beneath, and then distributed amongst the bystanders. The oxen were sacrificed, with prayers for the happy effects of the mistletoe. A beverage was prepared from this, and used as a remedy for all poisons and diseases, and which was supposed to favour fertility. A remnant of this seems to exist still in France; for the peasant boys use the expression, 'au gui l'an neuf,' as a new year's greeting. It is also a custom in Britain to hang the mistletoe to the roof on Christmas eve; the men lead the women under it, and wish a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Perhaps the mistletoe was taken as a symbol of the new year, on account of its leaves giving the bare tree the appearance of having regained its foliage."
One of the strangest of mystic plants is the "Mandrake." Some belief in its power was evidently current amongst the Hebrews. Josephus gives an account of the custom in Jewish villages of pulling up the root by means of a dog, which is killed by its shriek. This is the salient feature of the superstition. "To procure it, one must cut away all rootlets to the main root; to pull up that would cause death to any creature hearing it. So one must stop his ears carefully, and, having tied a dog to the root, run away. The dog is then called, and pulling up the root, is instantly killed."
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It was believed in France and Germany that the mandrake sprang up where the presence of a criminal had polluted the ground, and was sure to be found near a gallows. Having got the root, it must be bathed every Friday, kept in a white cloth in a box, and then it would procure manifold benefits. A letter, written by a burgess of Leipsic to his brother in Riga (in 1675), has been preserved, and this contains the popular notion of the time as to the virtues of the mannikin, earth-man, or mandrake. It recites that the writer had heard of his brother that in "thy home affairs hast suffered great sorrow; that thy children, cows, swine, sheep, and horses, have all died; thy wine and beer soured in thy cellar, and thy provender destroyed; and that thou dwellest with thy wife in great contention." He then proceeds to say that he went to those who understood such things, and they told him that these evils proceeded not from God, but from wicked people, and this was the remedy. 'If thou hast a mandrake, and bring it into thy house, thou shalt have good fortune.' So he had one purchased for him for sixty-four thalers, and sent it to him as a present, with these instructions: "When thou hast the mandrake in thy house, let it rest three days without approaching it; then place it in warm water. With the water afterwards sprinkle the animals and sills of the house, going over all, and soon it shall go better with thee, and thou shalt come to thy own if thou serve the mandrake right. Bathe it four times every year, and as often wrap it in silk cloths and lay it among thy best things, and thou need do no more. The bath in which it has been bathed is specially good. When thou goest to law, put the mannikin under thy right arm, and thou shalt succeed, whether right or wrong."
- "Mystic Trees and Flowers," in "Fraser's Magazine," December, 1870.
Curious old figures of the traditional mandrake are extant, of which we give copies. Stories of its potency, and of marvels associated with its possession, are numerous in Britain, France, and Germany.
Or teach me where that wondrous mandrake grows Whose magic root, torn from the earth with groans At midnight hour, can scare the fiends away, And make the mind prolific in its fancies.
- Longfellow’s “Spanish Student,” p. 92.
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In a French work (dated 1718) a peasant is said to have possessed a bryony root of human shape, which he received from a gipsy. He buried it at a lucky conjunction of the moon with Venus, in spring, and on a Monday, in a grave, and sprinkled it with milk in which three field-mice had been drowned. In a month it became more human-like than ever; then he placed it in an oven with vervain, wrapped it afterwards in a dead man's shroud; and so long as he kept it he never failed in luck at games or work. The root of the white bryony has, during later times, been designated the "mandrake," but the precise time or history of its substitution for the genuine mandrake is obscure. In different parts of Europe fragments of the old superstition still linger, and bits of the root are cherished as charms, love-tokens, as a preventive from night-mare, or a protection from bad men and evil spirits, or even for the old virtues attributed to it by the Jews.
It would not be difficult to occupy an entire chapter with allusions to flowers and plants, or some of their parts, which have had a reputation in times past of being associated with the world of spirits, as philtres or love-charms, as a protection against witchcraft, or as possessing some mysterious virtue. Such was the Saint John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum), gathered on the eve of St. John the Baptist Day, and hung over doors and windows as a charm against storms, thunder, and evil spirits, or carried on the person as a protection against witchcraft and enchantment, the gathering of fern-seed on Midsummer's Eve and many others, curious enough in themselves, but which have become "popular antiquities."