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271
The Folk-lore of Plants
·
T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
93
Footnotes:
1.
Thorpe's
"Northern
Mythology."
2.
Fraser's
Magazine,
1870,
p.
720.
CHAPTER
IX.
DREAM-PLANTS.
The
importance
attached
to
dreams
in
all
primitive
and
savage
culture
accounts
for
the
significance
ascribed
to
certain
plants
found
by
visitors
to
dreamland.
At
the
outset,
it
may
be
noticed
that
various
drugs
and
narcotic
potions
have,
from
time
immemorial,
been
employed
for
producing
dreams
and
visions--a
process
still
in
force
amongst
uncivilised
tribes.
Thus
the
Mundrucus
of
North
Brazil,
when
desirous
of
gaining
information
on
any
special
subject,
would
administer
to
their
seers
narcotic
drinks,
so
that
in
their
dreams
they
might
be
favoured
with
the
knowledge
required.
Certain
of
the
Amazon
tribes
use
narcotic
plants
for
encouraging
visions,
and
the
Californian
Indians,
writes
Mr.
Tylor,[1]
"would
give
children
narcotic
potions,
to
gain
from
the
ensuing
visions
information
about
their
enemies;"
whilst,
he
adds,
"the
Darien
Indians
used
the
seeds
of
the
Datura
sanguinca
to
bring
on
in
children
prophetic
delirium,
in
which
they
revealed
hidden
treasure."
Similarly,
the
Delaware
medicine-men
used
to
drink
decoctions
of
an
intoxicating
nature,
"until
their
minds
became
wildered,
so
that
they
saw
extraordinary
visions."[2]
The
North
American
Indians
also
held
intoxication
by
tobacco
to
be
supernatural
ecstasy.
It
is
curious
to
find
a
survival
of
this
source
of
superstition
in
modern
European
folk-lore.
Thus,
on
the
Continent,
many
a
lover
puts
the
four-leaved
clover
under
his
pillow
to
dream
of
his
lady-love;
and
in
our
own
country,
daisy-roots
are
used
by
the
rustic
maiden
for
the
same
purpose.
The
Russians
are
familiar
with
a
certain
herb,
known
as
the
son-trava,
a
dream
herb,
which
has
been
identified
with
the
Pulsatilla
patens,
and
is
said
to
blossom
in
April,
and
to
have
an
azure-coloured
flower.
When
placed
under
the
pillow,
it
will
induce
dreams,
which
are
generally
supposed
to
be
fulfilled.
It
has
been
suggested
that
it
was
from
its
title
of
"tree
of
dreams"
that
the
elm
became
a
prophetic
tree,
having
been
selected
by
Virgil
in
the
Aeneid
(vi.)
as
the
roosting-place
of
dreams
in
gloomy
Orcus:
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