'Euphrasy and rue,' says Lang, 'were employed to purge and purify mortal
eyes. Pliny is very learned about the magical virtues of rue. Just as
the stolen potato is sovran for rheumatism, so "rue stolen thriveth the
best." The Samoans think that their most valued vegetables were stolen
from heaven by a Samoan visitor. It is remarkable that rue, according to
Pliny, is killed by the touch of a woman, in the same way as, according
to Josephus, the mandrake is tamed. These passages prove that the
classical peoples had the same extraordinary superstitions about women
as the Bushmen and Red Indians. Indeed, Pliny describes a magical manner
of defending the crops from blight by aid of women, which is actually
practised in America by the red-man.'

Although rue was found in the witches' cauldron, it is also to be found
as a popular specific against the blight of witchcraft. Concerning this,
however, Moncure Conway says that 'the only region on the Continent
where any superstition concerning rue is found resembling the form it
assumed in England as affecting the eye is in the Tyrol, where it is one
of five plants--the others being broom-straw, agrimony, maidenhair, and
ground-ivy--which are bound together, and believed, if carried about, to
enable the bearer to see witches, or if laid over the door, to keep any
witch who shall seek to enter fastened on the threshold.'

In Scandinavia and North Germany, St. John's wort was used in much the
same way for the same purpose.

As to the vervain, which we have seen to be associated with rue, this is
a plant the use of which against witchcraft was more widely distributed,
just as its medical virtues were also more extensively known. The
vervain, indeed, was a sacred plant among the Greeks, as well as among
the Druids, who gathered it with solemn religious ceremonies, as they
did the sacred mistletoe. Vervain was most esteemed, however, as a love
potion, but the connection between its virtues in this respect, and its
power over witches and spirits of evil, opens up a branch of inquiry
away from our present purpose.

We speak of vervain in connection with rue, because it was the 'holy
herb,' just as rue was the 'herb of grace.' Not only was the vervain
sacred among the early Druids, but it acquired an early sanctity among
Christians. Thus the legend runs:

'All hail, thou holy herb, vervain,
Growing on the ground;
On the Mount of Calvary
There wast thou found!
Thou h