The Ely Miner

THE SOW THISTLE

WHEN the sow thistle drops its blossoms it is a sure sign of rain.

This superstition, according to the Journal of the American Folk Lore Society, exists in the southern states; very likely the reader will know of its existence in other sections of the country. As far as the writer can find out, it is the only survival in this country of the many superstitions connected with the sow thistle in Europe, where from time immemorial it has been a magic plant.

Though not indigenous to this continent the sow thistle—or swine thistle as it is sometimes called—is now widely distributed here. The name that the immigrant has brought with it is reminiscent of one of the magic attributes with which it is accredited in the Old world, where sprigs of it are nailed inside the pig troughs so that the swine may profit by the magical virtues which it imparts to their food.

In Europe, as in America, the sow thistle is able to foretell the rain.

The legend of the discovery of the virtues of the plant in question is evidently more modern than the superstitions which pertain to it. The legend says that in a time of drought and a visitation of the plague, Charlemagne was bidden by an angel in a dream to shoot an arrow into the air: whatever that arrow lighted upon would cure the plague. Charlemagne followed directions and his arrow lighted upon a clump of sow thistle. By royal proclamation the people ate sow thistle and the plague disappeared; presumably the rain fell also. It is evident that the sow thistle was one of the many "lightning plants" of the old Germans—plants which were supposed to be engendered, or at least fructified, by lightning, and lightning is, as a rule, accompanied by rain. In the use of the plant in connection with hogs so common in Germany, there may be a reminiscence of the pig which was sacrificed to Isis to insure moisture.

(© by McClure Newspaper Syndicate.)