On St. John’s Eve, the Witches of Russia are busily engaged searching on the mountains for the _Gentiana amarella_, and on the morning of St. John’s Day, for the _Lythrum silicaria_, without having found which no one can hope to light upon the former herb. These herbs being hostile to Witches, are sought by them only to be destroyed. In Franche-Comté they tell of a certain satanic herb, of which the juice gives to Witches the power of riding in the air on a broomstick when they wish to proceed to their nocturnal meeting. Plants used for Charms and Spells. In mediæval times the sick poor were accustomed to seek and find the relief and cure of their ailments at the hands of studious, kind-hearted monks, and gentle, sympathetic nuns; but after the Reformation, the practice of the healing art was relegated either to charitable gentlewomen, who deemed it part of their duty to master the mysteries of simpling, or to the Wise Woman of the village, who frequently combined the professions of midwife and simpler, and collected and dispensed medical herbs. Too often, however, the trade in simples and herbs was carried on by needy and ignorant persons--so-called herbalists, quack doctors, and charlatans, or aged crones, desirous of turning to account the superficial knowledge they possessed of the properties of the plants which grew on the neighbouring hill-sides, or were to be found nearer at hand in the fields and hedgerows. As these simplers and herbalists often made serious mistakes in their treatment, and were willing, as a rule, to supply noisome and poisonous herbs to anyone who cared to pay their price, it is not to be wondered at that they were often regarded with dread by their ignorant neighbours, and that eventually they came to be stigmatised as Wizards and Witches.