bush, out
of spite he placed its thorns in their present eccentric position. The
seed of the parsley, "is apt to come up only partially, according as the
devil takes his tithe of it."[3] In Germany "devil's oaks" are of
frequent occurrence, and "one of these at Gotha is held in great
regard."[4] and Gerarde, describing the vervain, with its manifold
mystic virtues, says that "the devil did reveal it as a secret and
divine medicine." Belladonna, writes Mr. Conway, is esteemed in Bohemia
a favourite plant of the devil, who watches it, but may be drawn from it
on Walpurgis Night by letting loose a black hen, after which he will
run. Then there is the sow-thistle, which in Russia is said to belong to
the devil; and Loki, the evil spirit in northern mythology, is
occasionally spoken of as sowing weeds among the good seed; from whence,
it has been suggested, originated the popular phrase of "sowing one's
wild oats."[5] The German peasantry have their "rye-wolf," a malignant
spirit infesting the rye-fields; and in some parts of the Continent
orchards are said to be infested by evil demons, who, until driven away
by various incantations, are liable to do much harm to the fruit. The
Italians, again, affirm that in each leaf of the fig-tree an evil spirit
dwells; and throughout the Continent there are various other demons who
are believed to haunt the crops. Evil spirits were once said to lurk in
lettuce-beds, and a certain species was regarded with ill favour by
mothers, a circumstance which, Mr. Folkard rightly suggests,[6] may
account for a Surrey saying, "O'er much lettuce in the garden will stop
a young wife's bearing." Among similar legends of the kind it is said
that, in Swabia, fern-seed brought by the devil between eleven and
twelve o'clock on Christmas night enables the bearer to do as much work
as twenty or thirty ordinary men. According to a popular piece of
superstition current in our southern counties, the devil is generally
supposed to put his cloven foot upon the blackberries on Michaelmas Day,
and hence after this date it is considered unlucky to gather them during
the remainder of the year. An interesting instance of this superstition
is given by Mrs. Latham in her "West Sussex Superstitions," which
happened to a farmer's wife residing in the neighbourhood of Arundel. It
appears that she was in the habit of making a large quantity of
blackberry jam, and finding that less fruit had been brought to her than
she re