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271
The Folk-lore of Plants
·
T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
170
Similarly,
we
are
told
how
the
common
break-fern
flowers
but
once
a
year,
at
midnight,
on
Michaelmas
Eve,
when
it
displays
a
small
blue
flower,
which
vanishes
at
the
approach
of
dawn.
According
to
a
piece
of
folk-lore
current
in
Bohemia
and
the
Tyrol,
the
fern-seed
shines
like
glittering
gold
at
the
season,
so
that
there
is
no
chance
of
missing
its
appearance,
especially
as
it
has
its
sundry
mystic
properties
which
are
described
elsewhere.
Professor
Mannhardt
relates
a
strange
legend
current
in
Mecklenburg
to
the
effect
that
in
a
certain
secluded
and
barren
spot,
where
a
murder
had
been
committed,
there
grows
up
every
day
at
noon
a
peculiarly-shaped
thistle,
unlike
any
other
of
its
kind.
On
inspection
there
are
to
be
seen
human
arms,
hands,
and
heads,
and
as
soon
as
twelve
heads
have
appeared,
the
weird
plant
vanishes.
It
is
further
added
that
on
one
occasion
a
shepherd
happened
to
pass
the
mysterious
spot
where
the
thistle
was
growing,
when
instantly
his
arms
were
paralysed
and
his
staff
became
tinder.
Accounts
of
these
fabulous
trees
and
plants
have
in
years
gone
been
very
numerous,
and
have
not
yet
wholly
died
out,
surviving
in
the
legendary
tales
of
most
countries.
In
some
instances,
too,
it
would
seem
that
certain
trees
like
animals
have
gained
a
notoriety,
purely
fabulous,
through
trickery
and
credulity.
About
the
middle
of
the
last
century,
for
instance,
there
was
the
groaning-tree
at
Badesly,
which
created
considerable
sensation.
It
appears
that
a
cottager,
who
lived
in
the
village
of
Badesly,
two
miles
from
Lymington,
frequently
heard
a
strange
noise
behind
his
house,
like
a
person
in
extreme
agony.
For
about
twenty
months
this
tree
was
an
object
of
astonishment,
and
at
last
the
owner
of
the
tree,
in
order
to
discover
the
cause
of
its
supposed
sufferings,
bored
a
hole
in
the
trunk.
After
this
operation
it
ceased
to
groan,
it
was
rooted
up,
but
nothing
appeared
to
account
for
its
strange
peculiarity.
Stories
of
this
kind
remind
us
of
similar
wonders
recorded
by
Sir
John
Maundeville,
as
having
been
seen
by
him
in
the
course
of
his
Eastern
travels.
Thus
he
describes
a
certain
table
of
ebony
or
blackwood,
"that
once
used
to
turn
into
flesh
on
certain
occasions,
but
whence
now
drops
only
oil,
which,
if
kept
above
a
year,
becomes
good
flesh
and
bone."
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