It is one of the most curious of the curiosities of English plant names that the Wild Thyme--a plant so common and so widely distributed, and that makes itself so easily known by its fine aromatic, pungent scent, that it is almost impossible to pass it by without notice--has yet no English name, and seems never to have had one. Thyme is the Anglicised form of the Greek and Latin _Thymum_, which name it probably got from its use for incense in sacrifices, while its other name of _serpyllum_ pointed out its creeping habit. I do not know when the word Thyme was first introduced into the English language, for it is another curious point connected with the name, that _thymum_ does not occur in the old English vocabularies. We have in Ælfric's "Vocabulary," "Pollegia, hyl-wyrt," which may perhaps be the Thyme, though it is generally supposed to be the Pennyroyal; we have in a Vocabulary of thirteenth century, "Epitime, epithimum, fordboh," which also may be the Wild Thyme; we have in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century, "Hoc sirpillum, A{ce} petergrys;" and in a Pictorial Vocabulary of the same date, "Hoc cirpillum, A{ce} a pellek" (which word is probably a misprint, for in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," c. 1440, it is "Peletyr, herbe, _serpillum piretrum_"), both of which are almost certainly the Wild Thyme; while in an Anglo-Saxon Vocabulary of the tenth or eleventh century we have "serpulum, crop-leac," _i.e._, the Onion, which must certainly be a mistake of the compiler. So that not even in its Latin form does the name occur, except in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," where it is "Tyme, herbe, _Tima_, _Timum_--Tyme, floure, _Timus_;" and in the "Catholicon Anglicum," when it is "Tyme; _timum epitimum; flos ejus est_." It is thus a puzzle how it can have got naturalized among us, for in Shakespeare's time it was completely naturalized. I have already quoted Lord Bacon's account of it under BURNET, but I must quote it again here: "Those flowers which perfume the air most delightfully, not passed by as the rest, but being trodden upon and crushed, are three--that is Burnet, Wild Thyme, and Water mints; therefore you are to set whole alleys of them, to have the pleasure when you walk or tread;" and again in his pleasant description of the heath or wild garden, which he would have in every "prince-like garden," and "framed as much as may be to a natural wildness," he says, "I like also little heaps, in the nature of mole-hills (such as are in wild heaths) to be set some with Wild Thyme, some with Pinks, some with Germander." Yet the name may have been used sometimes as a general name for any wild, strong-scented plant. It can only be in this sense that Milton used it-- "Thee, shepherd! thee the woods and desert caves, With Wild Thyme and the gadding Vine o'ergrown, And all their echoes mourn." _Lycidas._