ch the Greeks, in grief for his loss, wove into chaplets for the
victors at the Nemaean games. At these games it was always customary to
deliver a funeral oration in memory of Archemorus, while the
participators were dressed in mourning. Hence the association of parsley
with death among the Greeks, and the long-prevailing Western belief that
the plant is 'unlucky,' is only another instance of the marvellous
longevity of superstitions.

It is said by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer that in Devonshire to transplant
parsley is accounted a serious offence against the tutelary spirit of
the herb, and is certain to be punished within the year by some great
misfortune. In South Hampshire the country people will never give
parsley away, for fear of trouble; and in Suffolk it is believed that if
it be sown on any other day than Good Friday it will not grow double.
The _Folklore Record_, some years ago, gave the case of a gentleman near
Southampton whose gardener refused to sow some parsley-seed when
ordered, because 'it would be a bad day's work' for him to do so; the
most he would do was to bring a plant or two, and throw them down for
the master to pick up if he chose. To give them, however, the man
regarded as fatal.

But even to move parsley is regarded in some places to be unlucky, and
we have heard of a parish clerk in Devonshire who was bedridden, and who
was popularly supposed to owe his trouble to having moved some
parsley-beds. There is a similar superstition in Germany, and many
readers have probably often come across an old saying, that 'Parsley
fried will bring a man to his saddle and a woman to her grave.' The
allusion to the saddle is obscure; but it is obvious that all the
superstitious dread of parsley is a survival of the old Greek fable
immortalized in the Nemaean games.

That the rose should be associated with death may appear strange to
some, yet so it was. The Greeks certainly used the rose in their funeral
rites and for the decoration of their tombs. The Romans used it for
similar purposes, and often bequeathed legacies for the express purpose
of keeping their tombs adorned with the flower. Whether it was by them
that the practice was introduced into England is not capable of direct
proof, but it is worthy of note that at Ockley, a place where the Romans
were often located in large numbers, it was a custom of comparatively
recent experience for girls to plant roses upon the graves of their dead
lovers. Hence, no dou