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Chap. XXXVI.
THE WITCHES’ PLANT.
105
wilder and more undulating—seme, as the heralds
say, with strong-scented cream-coloured orchises *—how
fragrant too it crushes under your feet! no wonder the
bees thrive around in the cottage hives: look at the
Lycopodium clavatum—the witches’ own plant. What
a network of green! pull up a piece—pull on—four
yards, five yards in length; it breaks, you’ve handled
it too roughly; you might have gone on for ever, it
extends over the whole heath. Observe those long,
tender shoots which rise pale-coloured above the brown
heather: gather one—shake it—a fine dust, its seed, falls
out; that dust is used by chemists; they place it in the
boxes among the pills to keep them separate. Morison
employs it. If it have a bad odour, it is owing to the
sulphur they mingle with it, for the powder itself is
fragrant. Hold it above the candle—see how it blazes
like a firework, a godsend in early times to witches and
necromancers. The sea now appears in sight, and then
the town of Frederikshavn. We pass by the public
garden, all avenue and shady walk; descend to
Zimmerman’s hotel to dine, and then proceed.
Our postilion was to drive us to the village of Jerup,
some two miles’ distance, and there engage us two boer’s
carriages to convey us to Skagen, and bring us back to
Frederikshavn the following day.
After two hours’ drive over a waste moor, well backed
by the rising dunes of the opposite coast, blue in the
horizon, carpeted with the flowers of the thrift,! we arrive
at Jerup, a nest of dairy-farms, in former days a waste,
* Brøndgræs—water-grass.
t Faare leger—“ sheep’s-flower ”—they call it in Zealand; in Jutland
“the warriorhere, in Vendsyssel, “daglig brod,”—daily bread; and
they have enough of it in all conscience.
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