Then it follows:

The wounds given to the image were supposed to be productive of similar stounds of love in the tender heart of the maiden whom it represented.

The same horrid rites were observed on the continent. For Grilland (de Sortilegiis) says: Quidam solent apponere imaginem cerae juxta ignem ardentem, completis sacrificiis, de quibus supra, & adhibere quasdam preces nefarias, & turpia verba, ut quemadmodum imago illa igne consumitur & liquescit, eodem modo cor mulieris amoris calore talis viri feruenter ardeat, etc. Malleus Malefic. T. H., p. 232.

It cannot be doubted that these rites have been transmitted from heathenism. Theocritus mentions them as practiced by the Greeks in his time. For he introduces Samoetha as using similar enchantments, partly for punishing, and partly for regaining her faithless lover.

Samoetha burns the bough in the name of her false lover, and terms the wax devoted. With this the more modern ritual of witchcraft corresponded. The name of the person, represented by the image, was invoked. For according to the narrative given concerning the witches of Pollock-shaws, having bound the image on a spit, they “turned it before the fire,—saying, as they turned it, Sir George Maxwell, Sir George Maxwell; and that this was expressed by all of them.” Glanvil’s Sadducismus, p. 391.

According to Grilland, the image was baptized in the name of Beelzebub. Malleus, ut. sup., p. 229.

There is nothing analogous to the Grecian rite, mentioned by Theocritus, of strewing salt. For Grilland asserts that, in the festivals of the witches, salt was never presented. Ibid., p. 215. It was perhaps excluded from their infernal rites as having been so much used as a sacred symbol.]

The following are among the twenty-eight “singular vertues” attributed by Butler to Honey: “… It breedeth good blood, it prolongeth old age … yea the bodies of the dead being embalmed with honey have been thereby preserved from putrefaction. And Athenæus doth witness it to be as effectual for the living, writing out of Lycus, that the Cyrneans, or inhabitants of Corsica, were therefore long-lived, because they did dailie vse to feed on honey, whereof they had abundance: and no marvaile: seeing it is so soveraigne a thing, and so many waies available for man’s health, as well being outwardly as inwardly applied. It is drunke against the bite of a serpent or mad dogs: and it is good for them having eaten mushrooms, or drunke popy, etc.”716

In the Treasvrie of Avncient and Moderne Times,717 there are two chapters devoted to the “Vertues of Honey.”

There is a story, that a man once came to Mohammed, and told him that his brother was afflicted with a violent pain in his belly; upon which the prophet bade him give him some honey. The fellow took his advice; but soon after coming again, told him that the medicine had done his brother no manner of service: Mohammed answered, “Go and give him more honey, for God speaks truth, and thy brother’s belly lies.” And the dose being repeated, the man, by God’s mercy, was immediately cured.718

In the sixteenth chapter of the Koran, Mohammed has likewise mentioned honey as a medicine for men.719

Athenæus tells us that Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera, after he had determined to rid himself of life on account of his extreme old age, and when he had begun to diminish his food day by day, when the day of the Thesmophonian festival came round, and the women of his household besought him not to die during the festival, in order that they might not be debarred from their share of the festivities, was persuaded and ordered a vessel full of honey to be set near him: and in this way he lived many days with no other support than honey; and then some days after, when the honey had been taken away, he died. But Democritus, Athenæus adds, had always been fond of honey; and he once answered a man, who had asked him how he could live in the enjoyment of the best health, that he might do so if he constantly moistened his inward parts with honey and his outward man with oil. Bread and honey was the chief food of the Pythagoreans, according to the statement of Aristoxenus, who says that those who ate this for breakfast were free from disease all their lives.720

“The gall of a vulture,” says Moufet, quoting Galen, in Euporist, “mingled with the juice of horehound (twice as much in weight as the gall is) and two parts of honey cures the suffusion of the eyes. Otherwise he mingles one part of the gall of the sea-tortoise, and four times as much honey, and anoints the eyes with it. Serenus prescribes such a receipt to cause one to be quick-sighted:

We are told in the German Ephemerides, that a young country girl, having eaten a great deal of honey, became so inebriated with it, that she slept the whole day, and talked foolishly the day following.722

Bevan, in his work on the Honey-Bee, mentions the following instances of a curious use to which propolis is sometimes put by the Bees: A snail, says he, having crept into one of Mr. Reaumur’s hives early in the morning, after crawling about for some time, adhered, by means of its own slime, to one of the glass panes. The Bees, having discovered the snail, surrounded it, and formed a border of propolis round the verge of its shell, and fastened it so securely to the glass that it became immovable.

Maraldi, another eminent Apiarian, states that a snail without a shell having entered one of his hives, the Bees, as soon as they observed it, stung it to death; after which, being unable to dislodge it, they covered it all over with an impervious coat of propolis.

Xenophon tells us that all the soldiers, who ate of the honey-combs, found in the villages on the mountains of the Colchians, lost their senses, and were seized with such violent vomiting and purging, that none of them were able to stand upon their legs: that those who ate but little, were like men very drunk, and those who ate much, like madmen, and some like dying persons. In this condition, this writer adds, great numbers lay upon the ground, as if there had been a defeat, and a general sorrow prevailed. The next day, they all recovered their senses, about the same hour they were seized; and, on the third and fourth days, they got up as if they had taken physic.724

Pliny accounts for this accident by saying there is found in that country a kind of honey, called from its effects, Thænomenon, that is, that those who eat it are seized with madness. He adds, that the common opinion is that this honey is gathered from the flowers of a plant called Rhododendros, which is very common in those parts. Tournefort thinks the modern Laurocerasus is the Rhododendros of Pliny, from the fact that the people of that country, at the present day, believe the honey that is gathered from its flowers will produce the effects described by Xenophon.725

The missionary Moffat in South Africa found some poisonous honey, which he unknowingly ate, but with no serious consequences. It was several days, however, before he got rid of a most unpleasant sensation in his head and throat. The plant from which the honey had been gathered was an Euphorbia.726

“In Podolia,” says the chronicler Hollingshed, “which is now subject to the King of Poland, their hives (of Bees) and combes are so abundant, that huge bores, overturning and falling into them, are drowned in the honie, before they can recover & find the meanes to come out.”727

Honey was offered up to the Sun by the ancient Peruvians.728

Dr. Sparrman has described a Hottentot dance, which he calls the Bee-dance. It is in imitation of a swarm of Bees; every performer as he jumps around making a buzzing noise.729

“To have a Bee in one’s bonnet” is a Scottish proverbial phrase about equivalent to the English, “To have a maggot in one’s head”—to be hair-brained. Kelly gives this with an additional word: “There’s a Bee in your bonnet-case.” In Scotland, too, it is said of a confused or stupefied man, that his “head is in the Bees.”730 These proverbial expressions were also in vogue in England.731

The following beautiful epigram, on a Bee inclosed in amber, is from the pen of Martial: “The Bee is inclosed, and shines preserved, in a tear of the sisters of Phaëton, so that it seems enshrined in its own nectar. It has obtained a worthy reward for its great toils; we may suppose that the Bee itself would have desired such a death.

The Septuagint has the following eulogium on the Bee in Prov. vi. 8, which is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures: “Go to the Bee, and learn how diligent she is, and what a noble work she produces, whose labors kings and private men use for their health; she is desired and honored by all, and though weak in strength, yet since she values wisdom, she prevails.”733

In Spain Bees are in great estimation; and this is evinced by the ancient proverb:

The best wishes of a Spanish mother to her son are, Bees, sheep, millstones, a pen behind the ear, and a place in the church.734

The following anecdote in the history of the Humble-bee (Bombus) is from the account of Josselyn of his voyages to New England, printed in 1674: “Near upon twenty years since there lived an old planter near Blackpoint, who on a Sunshine day about one of the clock lying upon a green bank not far from his house, charged his Son, a lad of 12 years of age, to awaken him when he had slept two hours; the old man falls asleep, and lying upon his back gaped with his mouth wide open enough for a Hawke to —— into it; after a little while the lad sitting by spied a Humble-bee creeping out of his Father’s mouth, which taking wing flew quite out of sight, the hour as the lad guest being come to awaken his Father, he jagged him and called aloud Father, Father, it is two o’clock, but all would not rouse him, at last he sees the Humble-bee returning, who lighted upon the sleeper’s lip and walked down as the lad conceived into his belly, and presently he awaked.”735

The following, on the different species of Humble-bees, is one of the popular rhymes of Scotland:

When the Archbishop of St. Andrews was cruelly murdered in 1679, “upon the opening of his tobacco box a living humming bee flew out,” which was explained to be a familiar or devil. A Scottish woman declared that a child was poisoned by its grandmother, who, together with herself, were “in the shape of bume-bees,” that the former carried the poison “in her cleugh, wings, and mouth.” A great Bee constantly resorted to another after receiving the Satanic mark, and rested on it.737

An anecdote is related by M. Reaumur respecting the thimble-shaped nest, formed of leaves, of the Carpenter-bee (Apis centuncularis?), which is a striking instance of the ridiculous superstition which prevails among the uneducated, and which even sometimes has no slight influence on those of better understandings. “In the beginning of July, 1736, the learned Abbé Nollet, then at Paris, was surprised by a visit from an auditor of the chamber of accounts, whose estate lay at a distant village on the borders of the Seine, a few leagues from Rouen. This gentleman came accompanied, among other domestics, by a gardener, whose face had an air of much concern. He had come to Paris in consequence of having found in his master’s ground many rows of leaves, unaccountably disposed in a mystical manner, and which he could not but believe were there placed by witchcraft, for the secret destruction of his lord and family. He had, after recovering from his first consternation, shown them to the curate of the parish, who was inclined to be of a similar opinion, and advised him without delay to take a journey to Paris, and make his lord acquainted with the circumstance. This gentleman, though not quite so much alarmed as the honest gardener, could not feel himself at perfect ease, and therefore thought it advisable to consult his surgeon upon the business, who, though a man eminent in his profession, declared himself utterly unacquainted with the nature of what was shown him, but took the liberty of advising that the Abbé Nollet, as a philosopher, should be consulted, whose well-known researches in natural knowledge might perhaps enable him to elucidate the matter. It was in consequence of this advice that the Abbé received the visit above mentioned, and had the satisfaction of relieving all parties from their embarrassment, by showing them several nests formed on a similar plan by other insects, and assuring them that those in their possession were the work of insects also.”738

In an English paper, the Observer, of July 25, 1813, there is an account of a “swarm of Bees resting themselves on the inside of a lady’s parasol.” They were hived without any serious injury to the lady.

In the Annual Register, 1767, p. 117, there was published by M. Lippi, Licentiate in Physic of the army of Paris, an account of a petrified Beehive, discovered on the mountains of Siout, in Upper Egypt. Broken open it disclosed the larvæ of Bees in the cells, hard and solid, and Bees themselves dried up like mummies. Honey was also found in the cells!739 The account is curious, but not entitled to much credit.

In the Liverpool Advertiser, and Times, of Nov. 24, 1817, there is a lengthy account of three Bees being found in a state of animation in a huge solid rock from the Western Point Quarry. Scientific attention was attracted, and as appears from the above-mentioned papers of Dec. 5, 1817, the mystery was cleared up by discovering in the rock “a sand hole” through which the insects had made their way.740