Violet, lettuce, sow-thistle

Violet, lettuce, sow-thistle: what lore surrounds it?

Folkard has the lettuce as the food of mourning: the ancients “employed it largely in their funeral repasts in commemoration of the death of Adonis, son of Myrrha, whom Venus had concealed in a bed of Lettuces,” and Eubulus “bitterly reproached his wife for having served up at a meal Lettuces, which were only recommended for funeral repasts.” In mediæval days “it was superstitiously thought that an evil spirit lurked in a bed of Lettuces,” whence perhaps the Richmond saying, “O'er-much Lettuce in the garden will stop a young wife's bearing.” Pliny held that lettuces “were thought to cause sleep,” and Pope has “Lettuce and Cowslip wine, probatum est.” The sow-thistle Theseus “is said to have received as a gift from the hands of Hecate,” and in Italian stories “Open Sow-thistle” works like Open Sesame. Of the violet, “according to Rapin, the Violet was once a fair nymph, who was changed by Diana into this flower to avoid the importunities of Apollo”; the Greek Ion was given “because, when Jupiter had metamorphosed Io into a white heifer, he caused sweet Violets to spring from the earth”; the Athenians preferred above all names that of “Athenian crowned with Violets”; and at the floral games of Toulouse the prize for the best poem “consisted of a golden Violet.”

Thiselton-Dyer has lettuce-beds as a haunt of spirits: “Evil spirits were once said to lurk in lettuce-beds, and a certain species was regarded with ill favour by mothers,” which may account for the Surrey saying, “O'er much lettuce in the garden will stop a young wife's bearing.” The sow-thistle “in Russia is said to belong to the devil,” yet in Italy mangers are decked at Christmas “with moss, sow-thistle, cypress, and holly.” The smooth sow-thistle and the garden lettuce both keep the flower-clock.

Grieve adds that violets were used by the Athenians “to moderate anger,” to procure sleep and “to comfort and strengthen the heart,” that Pliny “states that a garland or chaplet of Violets worn about the head will dispel the fumes of wine and prevent headache and dizziness,” that a Celtic poem recommends them “steeped in goats' milk to increase female beauty,” and that in the days of Charles II a conserve called “Violet Plate” “was considered of excellent use in consumption and was sold by all apothecaries.”