ile
the mouse-ear was credited with preventing the horses being hurt
when shod.

We have already alluded to the superstitions relating to birds and
plants, but may mention another relating to the celandine. One of the
well-known names of this plant is swallow-wort, so termed, says Gerarde,
not, "because it first springeth at the coming in of the swallows, or
dieth when they go away, for it may be found all the year, but because
some hold opinion that with this herbe the darns restore eyesight to
their young ones, when their eye be put out." Coles strengthens the
evidence in favour of this odd notion by adding: "It is known to such as
have skill of nature, what wonderful care she hath of the smallest
creatures, giving to them a knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if
haply diseases annoy them. The swallow cureth her dim eyes with
celandine; the wesell knoweth well the virtue of herb-grace; the dove
the verven; the dogge dischargeth his mawe with a kind of grasse," &c.

In Italy cumin is given to pigeons for the purpose of taming them, and a
curious superstition is that of the "divining-rod," with "its versatile
sensibility to water, ore, treasure and thieves," and one whose history
is apparently as remote as it is widespread. Francis Lenormant, in his
"Chaldean Magic," mentions the divining-rods used by the Magi, wherewith
they foretold the future by throwing little sticks of tamarisk-wood, and
adds that divination by wands was known and practised in Babylon, "and
that this was even the most ancient mode of divination used in the time
of the Accadians." Among the Hindus, even in the Vedic period, magic
wands were in use, and the practice still survives in China, where the
peach-tree is in demand. Tracing its antecedent history in this country,
it appears that the Druids were in the habit of cutting their
divining-rods from the apple-tree; and various notices of this once
popular fallacy occur from time to time, in the literature of bygone
years.

The hazel was formerly famous for its powers of discernment, and
it is still held in repute by the Italians. Occasionally, too, as
already noticed, the divining-rod was employed for the purpose of
detecting the locality of water, as is still the case in Wiltshire. An
interesting case was quoted some years ago in the _Quarterly Review_
(xxii. 273). A certain Lady N----is here stated to have convinced Dr.
Hutton of her possession of this remarkable gift, and by means of it