Yet timorous and ill-informed folk, mistrusting the kindly disposition of Elves and Fairies, took precautions for excluding Elfin visitors from their dwellings by hanging over their doors boughs of St. John’s Wort, gathered at midnight on St. John’s Eve. A more kindly feeling, however, seems to have prevailed at Christmas time, when boughs of evergreen were everywhere hung in houses in order that the poor frost-bitten Elves of the trees might hide themselves therein, and thus pass the bleak winter in hospitable shelter. Fairy Plants. In Devonshire the flowers of Stitchwort are known as Pixies. Of plants which are specially affected by the Fairies, first mention should be made of the Elf Grass (_Vesleria cærulea_), known in Germany as _Elfenkraut_ or _Elfgras_. This is the Grass forming the Fairy Rings, round which, with aerial footsteps, have danced “Ye demi-puppets, that By moonlight do the green sour ringlets make, Whereof the ewe not bites.”--_Shakspeare’s Tempest._ The Cowslip, or Fairy Cup, Shakspeare tells us forms the couch of Ariel--the “dainty Ariel” who has so sweetly sung of his Fairy life-- “Where the bee sucks, there lurk I; In a Cowslip’s bell I lie; There I couch when owls do cry; On a bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily. Merrily, merrily, shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.” The fine small crimson drops in the Cowslip’s chalice are said to possess the rare virtue of preserving, and even of restoring, youthful bloom and beauty; for these ruddy spots are fairy favours, and therefore have enchanted value. Shakspeare says of this flower of the Fays:-- “And I serve the Fairy queen, To dew her orbs upon the green: The Cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours: In those freckles live their savours.” Another of the flowers made potent use of by the Fairies of Shakspeare is the Pansy--that “little Western flower” which Oberon bade Puck procure:-- “Fetch me that flower,--the herb I showed thee once: The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid, Will make a man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees.” The Anemone, or Wind-flower, is a recognised Fairy blossom. The crimson marks on its petals have been painted there by fairy hands; and, in wet weather, it affords shelter to benighted Elves, who are glad to seek shelter beneath its down-turned petals. Tulips are greatly esteemed by the Fairy folk, who utilise them as cradles in which to rock the infant Elves to sleep.