It should be mentioned, however, that fairies, like witches, have a strange antipathy to yellow flowers, and rarely frequent localities where they grow.
In olden times, we read how in Scandinavia and Germany the rose was under the special protection of dwarfs and elves, who were ruled by the mighty King Laurin, the lord of the rose-garden: "Four portals to the garden lead, and when the gates are closed, No living might dare touch a rose, 'gainst his strict command opposed; Whoe'er would break the golden gates, or cut the silken thread, Or who would dare to crush the flowers down beneath his tread, Soon for his pride would have to pledge a foot and hand; Thus Laurin, king of Dwarfs, rules within his land." We may mention here that the beautiful white or yellow flowers that grow on the banks of lakes and rivers in Sweden are called "neck-roses," memorials of the Neck, a water-elf, and the poisonous root of the water-hemlock was known as neck-root.[4] In Brittany and in some parts of Ireland the hawthorn, or, as it is popularly designated, the fairy-thorn, is a tree most specially in favour.

On this account it is held highly dangerous to gather even a leaf "from certain old and solitary thorns which grow in sheltered hollows of the moorlands," for these are the trysting-places of the fairy race.

A trace of the same superstition existed in Scotland, as may be gathered from the subjoined extract from the "Scottish Statistical Report" of the year 1796, in connection with New parish:--"There is a quick thorn of a very antique appearance, for which the people have a superstitious veneration.

They have a mortal dread to lop off or cut any part of it, and affirm with a religious horror that some persons who had the temerity to hurt it, were afterwards severely punished for their sacrilege." One flower which, for some reason or other, is still held in special honour by them, is the common stichwort of our country hedges, and which the Devonshire peasant hesitates to pluck lest he should be pixy-led.

A similar idea formerly prevailed in the Isle of Man in connection with the St.John's wort.