tread,
Soon for his pride would have to pledge a foot and hand;
Thus Laurin, king of Dwarfs, rules within his land."


We may mention here that the beautiful white or yellow flowers that grow
on the banks of lakes and rivers in Sweden are called "neck-roses,"
memorials of the Neck, a water-elf, and the poisonous root of the
water-hemlock was known as neck-root.[4]

In Brittany and in some parts of Ireland the hawthorn, or, as it is
popularly designated, the fairy-thorn, is a tree most specially in
favour. On this account it is held highly dangerous to gather even a
leaf "from certain old and solitary thorns which grow in sheltered
hollows of the moorlands," for these are the trysting-places of the
fairy race. A trace of the same superstition existed in Scotland, as may
be gathered from the subjoined extract from the "Scottish Statistical
Report" of the year 1796, in connection with New parish:--"There is a
quick thorn of a very antique appearance, for which the people have a
superstitious veneration. They have a mortal dread to lop off or cut any
part of it, and affirm with a religious horror that some persons who had
the temerity to hurt it, were afterwards severely punished for their
sacrilege."

One flower which, for some reason or other, is still held in special
honour by them, is the common stichwort of our country hedges, and which
the Devonshire peasant hesitates to pluck lest he should be pixy-led. A
similar idea formerly prevailed in the Isle of Man in connection with
the St. John's wort. If any unwary traveller happened, after sunset, to
tread on this plant, it was said that a fairy-horse would suddenly