The ascent of Olympus / by Rendel Harris.

  • J. Rendel Harris
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ascent of Olympus / by Rendel Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that the bird is called in Latin Mei'ops^ and in German boniheckel^ and that it brings a herb called bdmheckel-k^'ut^ which it is not good for people generally to know of, as locks fly open before it. What is this mysterious herb which they call wonder-flower, key-flower, or spring-wurzel ? The tradition is in Pliny (lib. 10, 18), “ adactos cavernis eorum a pastore cuneos, admota quadem ab his herba, elabi creditur vulgo. Trebius ^ auctor est, clavum cuneumve adactum quanta libeat vi arbori, in qua nidum habeat, statim exilire cum crepitu arboris, cum insederit clavo aut cuneo.” We can only say of this magic herb, this key-plant or key-flower, that it was Janus and related to Picus ; its mythological name was Janus, its botanical name us unknown. It will have been remarked in the course of the argument that, although we have a very strong case for relating the mugwort to the patronage of Artemis and for identifying the patroness with the plant, yet the descriptions given of the plant’s habitat are, perhaps, not sufficiently precise to make us safe in identifying the mugwort with the Artemis Limnaea. There is, however, another famous magical and medical plant of antiquity that may meet the case more exactly. In Friend’s “ Flowers and Flower-Lore ” ^ we find the following description of the Osmunda Regahs^ or King^ Fern: “No one who has seen this stateliest of ferns in its most favoured haunts—some sheltered Cornish valley, the banks of a rushing Dartmoor stream, or the wooded margin of Grasmere or Killarney :— Plant lovelier in its own retired abode On Grasmere’s beach, than Naiad by the side Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere, Sole sitting on the shores of old romance, will doubt that its size and remarkable appearance . . . must always have claimed attention.” Here we have the very title “ Lady of the Lake ” given by Words¬ worth to the Osmunda Fern.^ This is very like to Artemis Limnaea. Let us see what the herbals say of the places where it is to be found. Parkinson says of it,^ “ It groweth on moores, boggs, and watery ' c. 150 B.C. See Plin., “ H.N.’’ IX. 89. ^ l.c. I. 159. ^ “ Poems on the Naming of Places,’’ IV. ^ “ Theatrum Botanicum,’’ p. 1039.
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