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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[NOVEMBER, 1886.
bridegroom makes an oblation to fire, and the of gold, silver, or coral, which is universally bride drops rue upon it as an oblation."as worn attached to the watch chain. It may Compare this with the use of rue in England. possibly, at one time, have been invested with According to Miller, rue was anciently named a threefold meaning. (1) As the horn of plenty, in English “ Herb Grace," or "Herb of bringing good fortune: (2) As a protection Grace," and Warburton says it had the latter against evil coming from without, from ill-disname from its having been used in exorcisms, posed or unlucky persons, who have the power but that " when Ophelia in Hamlet says to of casting the Evil Eye; and (3) May it not the Queen There's rue for you and here's also originally have had some association with some for me, we may call it herb o' grace the idea of the scape-goat? The following o' Sundays,' she does not refer to this plant anecdote, which was related to me by an Italian being used for exorcisms as performed in lady who knew one of the persons concerned Churches on Sundays, but means only, that would seem to indicate that this last idea is not the Queen may, with peculiar propriety, on a far-fetched one. A family had settled them. Sundays, when she solicite pardon for that selves in an apartment in a certain house at crime which she has so much occasion to rue Naples, when shortly afterwards another floor and repent of, call her rue, "herb of grace'." in the same house was hired by a lady whom In Burke's Romance of the Forum, it is said the first comers believed to be possessed of the that during the trial of Mrs. Manning "the Mal' Occhio or Evil Eye. They were in despair bench of the dock was, according to custom, at this circumstance, and in order to avert any strewn with rue." This practice has now been bad consequences which might result to themdiscontinued at the Old Bailey, and in place selves, they caused a ball to be brought to the of the herbs a small bouquet of flowers is placed house, and had it driven through the entrance on the judge's desk from April to October. archway and round and round the court-yard In the English Notes and Queries, when refer- for some hours, evidently as a scape-goat." ring to the use of rue at the Old Bailey we read This custom is in close connection with a wellthat in Laurence's Life of Fielding it is stated known one in India, where to the present day, that this custom arose after & contagious Hindus are universally in the habit of turning disease which had been engendered by the foul | loose bulls, to wander about, after some peratmosphere there upwards of a hundred years son's sins have been transferred to the animal ago, and in Bland's Popular Antiquities," it is by the performance of certain ceremonies. mentioned that rue was hung about the neck As an instance of the further development of as an amulet against witchcraft in Aristotle's this idea in the East Dr. Schuyler" speaks of time." Another reason given for this custom is a custom existing in Turkistan, in a passage that at an assize in the eighteenth century gaol BO curious that I cannot forbear quoting it. fever carried off judge, jury, and prisoners, "Life in Ach Kürgân was rather doll ; and that since then it had been used as a dis- amusement there was none, all games being infectant."
strictly forbidden. Such things as jugglery, We will now endeavour to find out the mean- dancing, and comic performances are, I am ing of the jettatura," (fascination or charm), told, prohibited in the Khanate : the licenand we shall perhaps be led to see that the tious Khân having seen the error of his ways, ideas connected with it once more serve to and having put on, for his people at least show the close alliance that exists between the the resemblance of virtue. Of praying there East and the West. In Naples, the favourito was very little; occasionally in the afternoon jettatura is the cornaiuolo, a tiny bull's horn or at sunset some few pious individuals would
18 Hindu couples may be frequently soen walking along told why it is wrong. In Germany the same thing is thus linked together, in the native baadre. But are inculoated, and the reason there given for it is that they bride and bridegroom? Of what caste are suchP ED.] "the stars are the angels' eyes." (Wolf: Beiträge sur 13 Garden and Botanical Dictionary, London, 1807 : Deutschen Mythologie.) An even more beautiful idea is 10 Second Series, No. 8, 1857.
that which was once expressed, within my own know. * Vol. III. p. 316.
ledge, by a little English girl, who after gazing long at 31 As an instance of an idea existing long after any the star-spangled firmament said, "I have found out reasonable explanation of it has been forgotten I may what the stars are they are holes which God makes in here mention that in many English villages children are the sky that we may see heaven through them!" taught that they must not point at the stars, but are not
# Turkistan, Vol. II. 28.
