CHAPTER VII.
PLANTS IN FAIRY-LORE.
Many plants have gained a notoriety from their connection with fairyland, and although the belief in this romantic source of superstition has almost died out, yet it has left its traces in the numerous legends which have survived amongst us.

Thus the delicate white flowers of the wood-sorrel are known in Wales as "fairy bells," from a belief once current that these tiny beings were summoned to their moonlight revels and gambols by these bells.

In Ireland they were supposed to ride to their scenes of merrymaking on the ragwort, hence known as the "fairies' horse." Cabbage-stalks, too, served them for steeds, and a story is told of a certain farmer who resided at Dundaniel, near Cork, and was considered to be under fairy control.

For a long time he suffered from "the falling sickness," owing to the long journeys which he was forced to make, night by night, with the fairy folk on one of his own cabbage stumps.

Sometimes the good people made use of a straw, a blade of grass, or a fern, a further illustration of which is furnished by "The Witch of Fife:" "The first leet night, quhan the new moon set, Quhan all was douffe and mirk, We saddled our naigis wi' the moon-fern leif, And rode fra Kilmerrin kirk.
Some horses were of the brume-cow framit, And some of the greine bay tree; But mine was made of ane humloke schaw, And a stour stallion was he."[1] In some folk-tales fairies are represented as employing nuts for their mode of conveyance, in allusion to which Shakespeare, in "Romeo and Juliet," makes Mercutio speak of Queen Mab's arrival in a nut-shell.
Similarly the fairies selected certain plants for their attire.