re decorated
with flowers and coloured eggs, around which the young people dance,
singing rhymes. The Bolognese, who regard garlic as the symbol of
abundance, buy it at the festival as a charm against poverty during the
coming year. The Bohemian, says Mr. Conway, "thinks he can make himself
shot-proof for twenty-four hours by finding on St. John's Day pine-cones
on the top of a tree, taking them home, and eating a single kernel on
each day that he wishes to be invulnerable." In Sicily it is customary,
on Midsummer Eve, to fell the highest poplar, and with shouts to drag it
through the village, while some beat a drum. Around this poplar, says
Mr. Folkard,[4] "symbolising the greatest solar ascension and the
decline which follows it, the crowd dance, and sing an appropriate
refrain;" and he further mentions that, at the commencement of the
Franco-German War, he saw sprigs of pine stuck on the railway carriages
bearing the German soldiers into France.

In East Prussia, the sap of dog-wood, absorbed in a handkerchief, will
fulfil every wish; and a Brandenburg remedy for fever is to lie naked
under a cherry-tree on St. John's Day, and to shake the dew on one's
back. Elsewhere we have alluded to the flowering of the fern on this
anniversary, and there is the Bohemian idea that its seed shines like
glittering gold.

Corpus Christi Day was, in olden times, observed with much ceremony, the
churches being decorated with roses and other choice garlands, while the
streets through which the procession passed were strewn with flowers. In
North Wales, flowers were scattered before the door; and a particular
fern, termed Rhedyn Mair, or Mary's fern--probably the maiden-hair--was
specially used for the purpose.

We may mention here that the daisy (_Bellis perennis_) was formerly
known as herb-Margaret or Marguerite, and was erroneously supposed to
have been named after the virtuous St. Margaret of Antioch:--

"Maid Margarete, that was so meek and mild;"

Whereas it, in all probability, derives its name from St. Margaret of
Cortona. According to an old legend it is stated:--

"There is a double flouret, white and red,
That our lasses call herb-Margaret,
In honour of Cortona's penitent,
Whose contrite soul with red remorse was rent;
While on her penitence kind heaven did throw
The white of purity, surpassing snow;
So white and red in this fair flower entwine,
Which maids are wont to scatter at her shrine."

Ag