pon his blessing a cup of poisoned
wine which a monk had given to destroy him, the glass was shivered to
pieces." In the same way, herb-gerard was called from St. Gerard, who was
formerly invoked against gout, a complaint for which this plant was once
in high repute. St. James's wort was so called from its being used for
the diseases of horses, of which this great pilgrim-saint was the
patron. It is curious in how many unexpected ways these odd items of
folk-lore in their association with the saints meet us, showing that in
numerous instances it is entirely their association with certain saints
that has made them of medical repute.

Some trees and plants have gained a medical notoriety from the fact of
their having a mystical history, and from the supernatural qualities
ascribed to them. But, as Bulwer-Lytton has suggested in his "Strange
Story," the wood of certain trees to which magical properties are
ascribed may in truth possess virtues little understood, and deserving
of careful investigation. Thus, among these, the rowan would take its
place, as would the common hazel, from which the miner's divining-rod is
always cut. [9] An old-fashioned charm to cure the bite of an adder was
to lay a cross formed of two pieces of hazel-wood on the ground,
repeating three times this formula [10]:--

"Underneath this hazelin mote,
There's a braggotty worm with a speckled throat,
Nine double is he;
Now from nine double to eight double
And from eight double to seven double-ell."

The mystical history of the apple accounts for its popularity as a
medical agent, although, of course, we must not attribute all the
lingering rustic cures to this source. Thus, according to an old
Devonshire rhyme,

"Eat an apple going to bed,
Make the doctor beg his bread."

Its juice has long been deemed potent against warts, and a Lincolnshire
cure for eyes affected by rheumatism or weakness is a poultice made of
rotten apples.

The oak, long famous for its supernatural strength and power, has been
much employed in folk-medicine. A German cure for ague is to walk round
an oak and say:--

"Good evening, thou good one old;
I bring thee the warm and the cold."

Similarly, in our own country, oak-trees planted at the junction of
cross-roads were much resorted to by persons suffering from ague, for
the purpose of transferring to them their complaint, [11] and elsewhere
allusion has already been made to the practice of curing sic