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Vervain

from Popular Rhymes And Nursery Tales - SUPERSITITIONS

The herb vervain was formerly held of great efficacy against witchcraft,
and in various diseases. Sir W. Scott mentions 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,
Leave off the St. John's wort and the vervine.

By his repugnance to these sacred plants, his mistress discovered the
cloven foot. Many ceremonies were used in gathering it. "You must
observe," says Gerard, "Mother Bumbies rules to take just so many knots
or sprigs, and no more, least it fall out so that it do you no good, if
you catch no harme by it; many odde olde wives' fables are written of
vervaine, tending to witchcraft and sorcerie, which you may reade
elsewhere, for I am not willing to trouble your eares with reporting
such trifles as honest eares abhorre to heare." An old English poem on
the virtue of herbs, of the fourteenth century, says:

As we redyn, gaderyd most hym be
With iij. pater-noster and iij. ave,
Fastand, thow the wedir be grylle,
Be-twen mydde March and mydde Aprille,
And [gh]et awysyd moste the be,
That the sonne be in ariete.

A magical MS. in the Chetham Library at Manchester, of the time of Queen
Elizabeth, furnishes us with a poetical prayer used in gathering this
herb:

All hele, thou holy herb vervin,
Growing on the ground;
In the mount of Calvary
There was thou found;
Thou helpest many a greife,
And stenchest many a wound.
In the name of sweet Jesus,
I take thee from the ground.
O Lord, effect the same
That I doe now goe about.

The following lines, according to this authority, were to be said when
pulling it:

In the name of God, on Mount Olivet
First I thee found;
In the name of Jesus
I pull thee from the ground.

Two hogsheads full of money were concealed in a subterraneous vault at
Penyard Castle, in Herefordshire. A farmer undertook to drag them from
their hiding-place, a matter of no small difficulty, for they were
protected by preternatural power. To accomplish his object, he took
twenty steers to draw down the iron doors of the vault in which the
hogsheads were deposited. The door was partially opened, and a jackdaw
was seen perched on one of the casks. The farmer was overjoyed at the
prospect of success, and as soon as he saw the casks, he exclaimed, "I
believe I shall have it." The door immediately closed with a loud clang,
and a voice in the air exclaimed--

Had it not been
For your quicken-tree goad,
And your yew-tree pin,
You and your cattle
Had all been drawn in!

The belief that the quicken-tree is of great efficacy against the power
of witches is still in force in the North of England. The yew-tree was
formerly employed in witchcraft, a practice alluded to in Macbeth:

Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goats, and slips of yew,
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse.

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Vervain