re kept in the same house it
will be burnt down; but, on the other hand, there is a belief among some
sailors that if rowan-tree be used in a ship, it will sink the vessel
unless juniper be found on board. In the Tyrol, the _Osmunda regalis_,
called "the blooming fern," is placed over the door for good teeth; and
Mr. Conway, too, in his valuable papers, to which we have been often
indebted in the previous chapters, says that there are circumstances
under which all flowers are injurious. "They must not be laid on the bed
of a sick person, according to a Silesian superstition; and in
Westphalia and Thuringia, no child under a year old must be permitted to
wreathe itself with flowers, or it will soon die. Flowers, says a common
German saying, must in no case be laid on the mouth of a corpse, since
the dead man may chew them, which would make him a 'Nachzehrer,' or one
who draws his relatives to the grave after him."

In Hungary, the burnet saxifrage (_Pimpinella saxifraga_) is a mystic
plant, where it is popularly nicknamed Chaba's salve, there being an old
tradition that it was discovered by King Chaba, who cured the wounds of
fifteen thousand of his men after a bloody battle fought against his
brother. In Hesse, it is said that with knots tied in willow one may
slay a distant enemy; and the Bohemians have a belief that
seven-year-old children will become beautiful by dancing in the flax.
But many superstitions have clustered round the latter plant, it having
in years gone by been a popular notion that it will only flower at the
time of day on which it was originally sown. To spin on Saturday is said
in Germany to bring ill fortune, and as a warning the following legend
is among the household tales of the peasantry:--"Two old women, good
friends, were the most industrious spinners in their village, Saturday
finding them as engrossed in their work as on the other days of the
week. At length one of them died, but on the Saturday evening following
she appeared to the other, who, as usual, was busy at her wheel, and
showing her burning hand, said:--

'See what I in hell have won,
Because on Saturday eve I spun.'"

Flax, nevertheless, is a lucky plant, for in Thuringia, when a young
woman gets married, she places flax in her shoes as a charm against
poverty. It is supposed, also, to have health-giving virtues; for in
Germany, when an infant seems weakly and thrives slowly, it is placed
naked upon the turf on Midsummer d