others as especially suited to nutting; thus in "Grim the Collier" Act ii. sc. i. (1662) we have the lines—
"To-morrow is Holy Rood day
When all a nutting take their way."
See also Brand (Bohn's edition), i. 353, and Notes and Queries, 1st series, x. 263, where a long account is given of the keeping of the "festival of nutting-day" at Penryn, Cornwall, "on some particular day in September or October," which was in all probability the day above named.
The Yarrow.
P. 32 (100). The use of this plant in love-divinations is widespread. In Suffolk it is employed in a curious manner: a leaf is placed in the nose, with the intention of making it bleed, while the following lines are recited:—
"Green 'arrow, green 'arrow, yon bears a white blow,
If my love love me, my nose will bleed now;
If my love don't love me, it 'ont bleed a drop;
If my love do love me, 'twill bleed every drop."
The old English name of the plant, Nose-bleed, may have been bestowed upon it either because "the leaves being put into the nose do cause it to bleede, and easeth the paine of the megrim," as Gerard tells us;[1] or because, on the contrary, "assuredly it will stay the bleeding of it."[2] The styptic properties of the plant are alluded to in the names Bloodwort and Carpenters'-grass, both given by Treveris in the Grete Herball, and in the Scotch name Stanch-girss. Drayton refers to
"The yarrow wherewithal he stops the new-made gore."
In Dublin on Mayday, or the preceding night, women place a stocking filled with yarrow under their pillow, reciting the following lines:—
"Good morrow, good yarrow, good morrow to thee,
I hope by the morrow my lover to see;
And that he may be married to me.
The colour of his hair and the clothes he does wear,
And if he be for me may his face be turned to me,
And if he be not, dark and surly may he be,
And his back be turned to me."
