If your whipstick’s made of row’n,
You may ride your nag through any town;
but, on the contrary—
Woe to the lad
Without a rowan-tree gad!
A bunch of ash-keys is thought as efficacious as the rowan-stick. An incident mentioned to me by the Rev. George Ornsby may be introduced here: “The other day I cut down a mountain-ash (or wiggan-tree, as it is called here) in my carriage-road. The old man who gardens for me came a day or two after, and was strangely disconcerted on seeing what ‘master’ had done in his absence; ‘for,’ said he, ‘wherever a wiggan-tree grows near a house, t’ witches canna come.’ He was comforted, however, by finding, on closer investigation, that a sucker from the tree had escaped destruction.”
Mr. Wilkie assures us, that, like the mountain-ash, the yew is a very upas tree to the witches, possibly because of its constant proximity to churches. They hate the holly, too, and with good reason: its name is but another form of the word holy, and its thorny foliage and blood-red berries are suggestive of the most sacred Christian associations. The bracken also they detest, because it bears on its root the letter C, the initial of the holy name Christ, which (says Mr. Wilkie) may plainly be seen on cutting the root horizontally. A friend suggests, however, that the letter intended is not the English C, but the Greek χ, the initial letter of the word χριστος, which really resembles very closely the marks in the root of the bracken, or Pteris aquilina. These marks have, however, been interpreted in many ways. Some say they resemble the Austrian double-headed eagle, and derive from hence the Latin name for the plant: others see in them Adam and Eve standing on either side of the tree of knowledge, or King Charles in the oak; or, again, they try to discover the initials of their future husband or wife.
But witches have their favourite plants as well. They love the broom and the thorn, as well as the ragwort, which is called in Ireland the fairies’ horse, and use them all as means for riding
