Seeing that the reverence and worship paid to trees by the ignorant and superstitious people was an institution impossible to uproot, the early Christian Church sought to turn it to account, and therefore consecrated old and venerated trees, built shrines beneath their shade, or placed on their trunks crucifixes and images of the Blessed Virgin. Legends connecting trees with holy personages, miracles, and sacred subjects were, in after years, freely disseminated; one of the most remarkable being the marvellous history of the Tree of Adam, in which it is sought to connect the Tree of Paradise with the Tree of Calvary. Evelyn summarises this misty tradition in the following sentence:--“Trees and woods have twice saved the whole world: first, by the Ark, then by the Cross; making full amends for the evil fruit of the tree in Paradise by that which was borne on the tree in Golgotha.” In course of time the flowers and plants which the ancients had dedicated to their pagan deities were transferred by the Christian Church to the shrines of the Virgin and sainted personages; this is especially noticeable in the plants formerly dedicated to Venus and Freyja, which, as being the choicest as well as the most popular, became, in honour of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady’s plants. Vast numbers of flowers were in course of time appropriated by the Church, and consecrated to her saints and martyrs--the selection being governed generally by the fact that the flower bloomed on or about the day on which the Church celebrated the saint’s feast. These appropriations enabled the Roman Catholics to compile a complete calendar of flowers for every day in the year, in which each flower is dedicated to a particular saint. But if the most beautiful flowers and plants were taken under the protection of the Church, and dedicated to the memory of her holiest and most venerated members, so, also, certain trees, plants, and flowers--which, either on account of their noxious properties, or because of some legendary associations, were under a ban--became relegated to the service of the Devil and his minions. Hence we find a large group of plants associated with enchanters, sorcerers, wizards and witches, many of which betray in their nomenclature their Satanic association, and are, even at the present day, regarded suspiciously as ill-omened and unlucky. These are the plants which, in the dark days of witchcraft and superstition, were invested with mysterious and magical properties,--the herbs which were employed by hags and witches in their heathenish incantations, and from which they brewed their potions and hell-broths. Thus Ben Jonson, in his fragment, ‘The Sad Shepherd,’ makes one of his characters say, when speaking of a witch:--