d pure barley meal.'

Among the Romans the onion seems to have been the common food of the
people, although Horace could not understand how they digested it. Its
use for promoting artificial tears was also well understood by them, for
Columella speaks of _Lacrymosa caepe_, and Pliny of _Caepis odor
lacrymosus_. Ovid, again, says that both onions and sulphur were given
to criminals to purify them from their crimes, upon the old theory of
purgation by fumigation. The Romans thought not only that the onion gave
strength to the human frame, but that it would also improve the
pugnacious quality of their gamecocks. Horace, however, thought that
garlic was a fit poison for anybody who committed parricide. The Emperor
Nero, on the other hand, thought that eating leeks improved the human
voice, and as he was ambitious of being a fine singer, he used to have a
leek diet on several days in each month.

The onion tribe must have been held in reverence elsewhere than in
Egypt, for, according to Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, in Poland the flower-stalk
of the leek is placed in the hands of Christ in pictures and statues.

On Halloween, in some parts of the country, girls attempt a method of
divination by means of a 'Saint Thomas onion.' They peel it, wrap it up
in a clean handkerchief, and, placing it under their heads, repeat the
following rhyme:

'Good St. Thomas, do me right,
And see my true love come to-night,
That I may see him in the face,
And him in my kind arms embrace.'

On the other hand, to dream of an onion is supposed in some parts to
foretell sickness.

Or else:

'To dream of eating onions means
Much strife in the domestic scenes,
Secrets found out, or else betrayed,
And many falsehoods made and said.'

It is also a portent of the weather:

'Onion's skin very thin,
Mild winter's coming in;
Onion's skin thick and tough,
Coming winter cold and rough.'

It was the practice in some places to hang up or burn an onion as a
safeguard against witchcraft, and the theory of this was that the devil
respected it because it was an ancient object of worship. This seems a
survival of the Egyptian story; but Mr. Hilderic Friend says that the
Arabs, Chinese, and many other peoples, to this day employ onions,
leeks, or garlic for preventing witchcraft, and that he himself has
frequently seen them tied up with a branch of sago-palm over the doors
of Eastern houses for this purpose.

The old custom