by John Prætorius, devoted to "the Witch-ride and Sorcery-Sabbath," the author tells us that witches make great use of nine special herbs--"nam in herbis, verbis et lapidibus magna vis est." Among these is Elder, of which the peasants make wreaths, which, if they wear on Walpurgis night, they can see the sorceresses as they sweep through the air on their brooms, dragons, goats, and other strange steeds to the Infernal Dance. Or when they anderswo herumvagiren--"go vagabonding anywhere else." "Yea, and I know one fellow who sware unto men, that by means of this herb he once saw certain witches churning butter busily, and that on a roof, but I mistrust that this was a sell (Schnake), and that the true name of this knave was Butyrolambius" ("Blocksberg," p. 475). The same author informs us that Hollunder (or Elder) is so called from hohl, or hollow, or else is an anagram of Unholden, unholy spirits, and some people call it Alhuren, from its connection with witches and debauchery, even as Cordus writes:-- "When elder blossoms bloom upon the bush, Then women's hearts to sensual pleasure rush." He closes his comments on this subject with the dry remark that if the people of Leipzig wear, as is their wont, garlands of elder with the object of preventing breaches of the seventh commandment among them, it has in this instance, at least, utterly failed to produce the expected effect. "Quasi! creadt Judæus Apella!" It should be mentioned that in the gypsy spell the next morning the cloth with the elder-bark must be thrown into the next running water. To cure toothache the Transylvanian gypsies wind a barley-straw round a stone, which is thrown into a running stream, while saying:-- "Oh dukh ándre m're dándá, Tu ná báres cingerá! Ná ává kiyá mánge, Mire muy ná hin kere! Tut ñikáná me kámáv, Ac tu mánge pál pácá; Káná e pçus yárpakri Avel tele páñori!" "Oh, pain in my teeth, Trouble me not so greatly! Do not come to me, My mouth is not thy house. I love thee not all, Stay thou away from me; When this straw is in the brook Go away into the water!" Straw was anciently a symbol of emptiness, unfruitfulness, and death, and it is evidently used in this sense by the gypsies, or derived by them from some tradition connected with it. A feigned or fruitless marriage is indicated in Germany by the terms Strohwittwer and Strohwittwe. From the earliest times in France the breaking a straw signified that a compact was broken with a man because there was nothing in him. Thus in 922 the barons of Charles the Simple, in dethroning him, broke the straws which they held (Charlotte de La Tour, "Symbols of Flowers"). Still, straws have something in them. She who will lay straws on the table in the full moonlight by an open window, especially on Saturday night, and will repeat-- "Straw, draw, crow craw, By my life I give thee law"--