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We can therefore understand why it has been a rule both of ancient and of modern folk-medicine that the mistletoe should not be allowed to touch the ground; were it to touch the ground, its healing virtue would be gone.
See Hunt's "Popular Romances of the West of England." Black's "Folk-medicine," p. 193. "Rabies or Hydrophobia," T. M. Dolan, 1879, p. 238. Black's "Folk-medicine," p. 193. Many of the legends of the plant-world have been incidentally alluded to in the preceding pages.
Folkard's "Plant-lore, Legends, and Lyrics," p. 463. Conway's "Mystic Trees and Flowers," Blackwood's Magazine, 1870, p. 594. Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," i. 212. See Black's "Folk-Medicine." "Mystic Trees and Flowers," p. 594. "Primitive Culture," ii. 215. Metam., viii. 742-839; also Grimm's Teut. Myth., 1883, ii. 953-4 Grimm's Teut. Myth., ii. 653.
It is by witchcraft that Gretter is first lamed and finally slain; one can see that Glam's curse, the Beowulf motif, was not really in the original Gretter story. "Folk-medicine" is really a branch of magic in old days, even to such pioneers of science as Paracelsus.
After a lapse of many centuries we find this idea of the life-giving plant reappearing in mediæval garb, daintily fashioned by Marie de France. Marie, in her story, tells us that the weasel brings a red flower. This was possibly the verbena, well known in folk-medicine as vervain, and much used in the Middle Ages.
Occasionally much attention in folk-medicine has been paid to lucky numbers; a remedy, in order to prove efficacious, having to be performed in accordance with certain numerical rules.
"There came three angels out of the east, One brought fire and two brought frost; Out fire and in frost, In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." Of the thousand and one plants used in popular folk-medicine we can but give a few illustrations, so numerous are these old cures for the ills to which flesh is heir.
And although an immense amount of superstition has been interwoven with folk-medicine, there is a certain amount of truth in the many remedies which for centuries have been, with more or less success, employed by the peasantry, both at home and abroad. See Tylor's "Primitive Culture," ii. See Folkard's "Plant-lore Legends and Lyrics," p. 164. "Mystic Trees and Shrubs," p. 717.
"Reliquiae Antiquse," Wright and Halliwell, i. 195; Quarterly Review, 1863, cxiv. 241. Coles, "The Art of Simpling," 1656. Anne Pratt's "Flowering Plants of Great Britain," iv. 9. Black's "Folk-medicine," p. 201. Folkard's "Plant-Lore Legends and Lyrics," p. 248. Fraser's Magazine, 1870, p. 591. "Plant-Lore Legends and Lyrics," p. 349. Black's "Folk-medicine," p. 185.
Folkard's "Plant-lore," p. 379. Hunt's "Popular Romances of the West of England," 1871, p. 415 Folkard's "Plant-lore Legends and Lyrics," p. 216. See Black's "Folk-medicine," 1883, p.195. Quarterly Review, cxiv. 245. "Sacred Trees and Flowers," Quarterly Review, cxiv. 244. Folkard's "Plant Legends," 364. Fraser's Magazine, 1870, p. 591. "Mystic Trees and Plants;" Fraser's Magazine, 1870, p. 708.
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