As plants were among the objects most familiar to primitive man, they naturally came to be considered good or evil, according as their properties were found to be beneficial or injurious. The imaginative and pure reverence, however, which originally linked plant life with the personifications of natural phenomena, soon degenerated into a superstitious worship and became associated with the mummery of various kinds of impostors. The plants, through the manipulations of the quacks and witches, who largely composed the fraternity of the early herbalists, became endowed with powers to kill or heal, to control the weather, to gain or hold friends, and many other associations that have clung to them ever since. The Thistle appears to have been especially favored in this regard. It appears that an eagle had stolen the sacred Soma from the Hindu tree of life. Barely had he departed with the immortalizing draught before he was overtaken by a lightning bolt and stretched lifeless upon the earth. From the eagle’s feathers sprang up the bramble, while the Thistle grew from his claws. About this time Loki, the evil spirit of the Norse Asgard, passed that way, bent upon mischief. The unpleasant qualities of the two plants at once appealed to him. Loki immediately gathered the seed and proceeded to sow them in the fields of his enemies, the result being that all the good seed was killed. This Aryan myth has given rise to the expression, “Sowing wild oats,” and is believed to be the origin of the biblical story of the tares and the wheat, coming into Hebrew literature by means of the Indo-Iranians at the time of the Israelitish exile.

Now, Thor observed what Loki had done; so he hurled his hammer at the brambles and a bolt of lightning at the Thistles. For this reason the thistle blossoms are colored red and the plants became lightning plants. But the end was not yet. The beautiful goddess Freya, seeing the Thistles drooping under the chastisement of the god, took compassion and gave them to drink of the mead from the sacred goat of Valhalla, by virtue of which the plants became invested with immortality. Thus it came to pass that the Thistle has a dual life. It is a lightning plant, in which, in common with similar forms, like the vervain, the hazel, and the ash is never injured by lightning or approached by serpents. On the other hand, it being a protege of Freya, the goddess of Love, it straightway became a powerful love charm, and doubtless has done much execution in Cupid’s lists.

The Thistle group is the most primitive of the Composite family, and it bears evidence of a vast evolutionary history. There are one hundred and seventy-five living species which are distributed over Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America. The plants seem able to adapt themselves to almost any conditions, and their unpleasant spines are found bidding defiance to the reindeer near the Arctic circle, as well as successfully measuring strength with the prickly cactus and acacias of the tropics. On our own prairies only plants thus armed stand much show to survive the herds of cattle that wander over them, and this protection, together with their great productiveness, have rendered Thistles such a nuisance and menace to agricultural interests as to necessitate legislative action looking to their extermination. The Russian and Canada thistles are the worst offenders, and where they once obtain a foothold they, as a rule, remain. The unpleasant qualities of the Thistle, however, served to bring about its adoption as the national emblem of Scotland. The story relates that during the eighth century the invading Danes, while stealing up to the Scotch camp under cover of darkness, passed over a patch of cotton thistle, and the sudden cries of the injured men warned the guards, and thus the army was saved. Achaius, King of Scotland, adopted the plant as his emblem in recognition of this service, but it was not made a part of the national arms until the middle of the fifteenth century.

BUR OR SPEAR THISTLE.
(Carduus lanceolatus.)
PASTURE OR FRAGRANT THISTLE.
(Carduus odoratus.)
FROM “NATURE’S GARDEN”