The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespear by Henry Nicholson Ellacombe (top romance novels .TXT) π
[4:1] Perhaps the most noteworthy plant omitted is Tobacco--Shakespeare must have been well acquainted with it, not only as every one in his day knew of it, but as a friend and companion of Ben Jonson, he must often have been in the company of smokers. Ben Jonson has frequent allusions to it, and almost all the sixteenth-century writers have something to say about it; but Shakespeare never names the herb, or alludes to it in any way whatever.
[4:2] It seems probable that the Lily of the Valley was not recognized as a British plant in Shakespeare's time, and was very little grown even in gardens. Turner says, "Ephemer[=u] is called in duch meyblumle, in french Muguet. It groweth plentuously in Germany, but not in England that ever I coulde see, savinge in my Lordes gardine at Syon. The Poticaries in Germany do name it Lilium C[=o]vallium, it may be called in englishe May Lilies."--Names of Herbes, 1548. Coghan in 1596 says much the same: "I say nothing of them
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To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth. 3rd Henry VI, act ii, sc. 5 (42). (6) Edgar. Through the sharp Hawthorn blows the cold wind (bis). King Lear, act iii, sc. 4 (47 and 102). (7) Arcite. Againe betake you to yon Hawthorne house. Two Noble Kinsmen, act iii, sc. 1 (90).
Under its many names of Albespeine, Whitethorn, Haythorn or Hawthorn, May, and Quickset, this tree has ever been a favourite with all lovers of the country.
Decking the field in holiday array,
Striving who shall surpass in braverie,
Mark the faire blooming of the Hawthorn tree,
Who, finely cloathed in a robe of white,
Fills full the wanton eye with May's delight.
Yet for the braverie that she is in
Doth neither handle card nor wheel to spin,
Nor changeth robes but twice; is never seen
In other colours but in white or green."
such is Browne's advice in his "Britannia's Pastorals" (ii. 2). He, like the other early poets, clearly loved the tree for its beauty; and in picturesque beauty the Hawthorn yields to none, when it can be seen in some sheltered valley growing with others of its kind, and allowed to grow unpruned, for then in the early summer it is literally a sheet of white, yet beautifully relieved by the tender green of the young leaves, and by the bright crimson of the anthers, and loaded with a scent that is most delicate and refreshing. But not only for its beauty is the Hawthorn a favourite tree, but also for its many pleasant associationsβit is essentially the May tree, the tree that tells that winter is really past, and that summer has fairly begun. Hear Spenserβ
With pleasaunce; the ground with Grasse, the woods
With greene leaves, the bushes with blooming buds,
Youngthes folke now flocken in everywhere
To gather May-baskets and smelling Brere;
And home they hasten the postes to dight,
And all the kirk-pillours eare day-light,
With Hawthorne-buds, and sweet Eglantine,
And girlondes of Roses, and soppes-in-wine."
Shepherd's CalendarβMay.
Yet in spite of its pretty name, and in spite of the poets, the Hawthorn now seldom flowers till June, and I should suppose it is never in flower on May Day, except perhaps in Devonshire and Cornwall; and it is very doubtful if it ever were so found, except in these southern counties, though some fancy that the times of flowering of several of our flowers are changed, and in some instances largely changed. But "it was an old custom in Suffolk, in most of the farmhouses, that any servant who could bring in a branch of Hawthorn in full blossom on the 1st of May was entitled to a dish of cream for breakfast. This custom is now disused, not so much from the reluctance of the masters to give the reward, as from the inability of the servants to find the Whitethorn in flower."βBrand's Antiquities.[112:1] Even those who might not see the beauty of an old Thorn tree, have found its uses as one of the very few trees that will grow thick in the most exposed places, and so give pleasant shade and shelter in places where otherwise but little shade and shelter could be found.
Under the Hawthorn in the dale."βMilton.
And "at Hesket, in Cumberland, yearly on St. Barnabas' Day, by the highway side under a Thorn tree is kept the court for the whole forest of Englewood."βHistory of Westmoreland.
The Thorn may well be admitted as a garden shrub either in its ordinary state, or in its beautiful double white, red, and pink varieties, and those who like to grow curious trees should not omit the Glastonbury Thorn, which flowers at the ordinary time, and bears fruit, but also buds and flowers again in winter, showing at the same time the new flowers and the older fruit.
Nor must we omit to mention that the Whitethorn is one of the trees that claims to have been used for the sacred Crown of Thorns. It is most improbable that it was so, in fact almost certain that it was not; but it was a mediæval belief, as Sir John Mandeville witnesses: "Then was our Lord yled into a gardyn, and there the Jewes scorned hym, and maden hym a crowne of the branches of the Albiespyne, that is Whitethorn, that grew in the same gardyn, and setten yt upon hys heved. And therefore hath the Whitethorn many virtues. For he that beareth a branch on hym thereof, no thundre, ne no maner of tempest may dere hym, ne in the howse that it is ynne may non evil ghost enter."
And we may finish the Hawthorn with a short account of its name, which is interesting:β"Haw," or "hay," is the same word as "hedge" ("sepes, id est, haies," John de Garlande), and so shows the great antiquity of this plant as used for English hedges. In the north, "haws" are still called "haigs;" but whether Hawthorn was first applied to the fruit or the hedge, whether the hedge was so called because it was made of the Thorn tree that bears the haws, or whether the fruit was so named because it was borne on the hedge tree, is a point on which etymologists differ.
FOOTNOTES:[112:1] "Gilbert White in his 'Naturalists' Calendar' as the result of observations taken from 1768 to 1793 puts down the flowering of the Hawthorn as occurring in different years upon dates so widely apart as the twentieth of April and the eleventh of June."βMilner's Country Pleasures, p. 83.
HAZEL. (1) Mercutio. Her [Queen Mab's] chariot is an empty Hazel-nutMade by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers. Romeo and Juliet, act i, sc. 4 (67). (2) Petruchio. Kate like the Hazel twig
Is straight and slender and as brown in hue
As Hazel-nuts and sweeter than the kernels. Taming of the Shrew, act ii, sc. 1 (255). (3) Caliban. I'll bring thee to clustering Filberts. Tempest, act ii, sc. 2 (174). (4) Touchstone. Sweetest Nut hath sourest rind,
Such a Nut is Rosalind.
As You Like It, act iii, sc. 2 (115). (5) Celia. For his verity in love I do think him as concave as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten Nut. Ibid., act iii, sc. 4 (25). (6) Lafeu. Believe this of me, there can be no kernel in this light Nut. All's Well that Ends Well, act ii, sc. 5 (46). (7) Mercutio. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking Nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast Hazel eyes. Romeo and Juliet, act iii, sc. 1 (20). (8) Thersites. Hector shall have a great catch, if he knock out either of your brains; a' were as good crack a fusty Nut with no kernel. Troilus and Cressida, act ii, sc. 1 (109). (9) Gonzalo. I'll warrant him for drowning; though the ship were no stronger than a Nut-shell. Tempest, act i, sc. 1 (49). (10) Titania. I have a venturous fairy that shall seek
The squirrel's hoard, and fetch thee new Nuts. Midsummer Night's Dream, act iv, sc. 1 (40). (11) Hamlet. O God, I could be bounded in a Nut-shell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. Hamlet, act ii, sc. 2 (260). (12) Dromio of Syracuse. Some devils ask but the parings of one's nail,
A Rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin,
A Nut, a Cherry-stone. Comedy of Errors, act iv, sc. 3 (72).
Dr. Prior has decided that "'Filbert' is a barbarous compound of phillon or feuille, a leaf, and beard, to denote its distinguishing peculiarity, the leafy involucre projecting beyond the nut." But in the times before Shakespeare the name was more poetically said to be derived from the nymph Phyllis. Nux Phyllidos is its name in the old vocabularies, and Gower ("Confessio Amantis") tells us whyβ
Was shape into a Nutte-tree,
That alle men it might see;
And after Phyllis philliberde,
This tre was cleped in the yerde"
(Lib. quart.),
and so Spenser spoke of it as "'Phillis' philbert" (Elegy 17).[115:1]
The Nut, the Filbert, and the Cobnut, are all botanically the same, and the two last were cultivated in England long before Shakespeare's time, not only for the fruit, but also, and more especially, for the oil.
There is a peculiarity in the growth of the Nut that is worth the notice of the botanical student. The male blossoms, or catkins (anciently called "agglettes or blowinges"), are mostly produced at the ends of the year's shoots, while the pretty little crimson female blossoms are produced close to the branch; they are completely sessile or unstalked. Now in most fruit trees, when a flower is fertilized, the fruit is produced exactly in the same place, with respect to the main tree, that the flower occupied; a Peach or Apricot, for instance, rests upon the branch which bore the flower. But in the Nut a different arrangement prevails. As soon as the flower is fertilized it starts away from the parent branch; a fresh branch is produced, bearing leaves and the Nut or Nuts at the end, so that the Nut is produced several inches away from the spot on which the flower originally was. I know of no other tree that produces its fruit in this way, nor do I know what special benefit to the plant arises from this arrangement.
Much folk-lore has gathered round the Hazel tree and the Nuts. The cracking of Nuts, with much fortune-telling connected therewith, was the favourite amusement on All Hallow's Eve (Oct. 31), so that the Eve was called Nutcrack Night. I believe the custom still exists; it certainly has not been very long abolished, for the Vicar of Wakefield and his neighbours "religiously cracked Nuts on All Hallow's Eve." And in many places "an ancient custom prevailed of going a Nutting on Holy Rood Day (Sept. 14), which it was esteemed quite unlucky to omit."βForster.[116:1]
A greater mystery connected with the Hazel is the divining rod, for the discovery of water and metals. This has always by preference been a forked Hazel-rod, though sometimes other rods are substituted. The belief in its power dates from a very early period, and is by no means extinct. The divining-rod is said to be still used in Cornwall, and firmly believed in; nor has this belief been confined to the uneducated. Even Linnæus confessed himself to be half a convert to it, and learned treatises have been written accepting the facts, and accounting for them by electricity or some other subtle natural agency. Most of us, however, will rather agree with Evelyn's cautious verdict, that the virtues attributed to the forked stick "made out so solemnly by the attestation of magistrates, and divers other learned and credible persons, who have critically examined matters of fact, is certainly next
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