Professor Gubernatis, referring to the symbolical nature of this tradition, remarks that, “this herb may be the moon itself, which opens the hiding-place of the night, or the thunderbolt, which opens the hiding-places of the cloud.”  According to the Swiss version of the story it is the hoopoe that brings the spring-wort, a bird also endowed with mystic virtues,[12] while in Iceland, Normandy, and ancient Greece it is an eagle, a swallow, or an ostrich.  Analogous to the talismanic properties of the springwort are those of the famous luck or key-flower of German folk-lore, by the discovery of which the fortunate possessor effects an entrance into otherwise inaccessible fairy haunts, where unlimited treasures are offered for his acceptance.  There then, again, the luck-flower is no doubt intended to denote the lightning, which reveals strange treasures, giving water to the parched and thirsty land, and, as Mr. Fiske remarks, “making plain what is doing under cover of darkness."[13] The lightning-flash, too, which now and then, as a lesson of warning, instantly strikes dead those who either rashly or presumptuously essay to enter its awe-inspiring portals, is exemplified in another version of the same legend.  A shepherd, while leading his flock over the Ilsentein, pauses to rest, but immediately the mountain opens by reason of the springwort or luck-flower in the staff on which he leans.  Within the cavern a white lady appears, who invites him to accept as much of her wealth as he choses.  Thereupon he fills his pockets, and hastening to quit her mysterious domains, he heeds not her enigmatical warning, “Forget not the best,” the result being that as he passes through the door he is severed in twain amidst the crashing of thunder.  Stories of this kind, however, are the exception, legendary lore generally regarding the lightning as a benefactor rather than a destroyer.  “The lightning-flash,” to quote Mr. Baring-Gould’s words, “reaches the barren, dead, and thirsty land; forth gush the waters of heaven, and the parched vegetation bursts once more into the vigour of life restored after suspended animation.”

That this is the case we have ample proof in the myths relating to plants, in many of which the life-giving properties of the lightning are clearly depicted.  Hence, also, the extraordinary healing properties which are ascribed to the various lightning plants.  Ash rods, for instance, are still used in many parts of England for the cure of diseased sheep, cows, and horses, and in Cornwall, as a remedy for hernia, children are passed through holes in ash trees.  The mistletoe has the reputation of being an antidote for poisons and a specific against epilepsy.  Culpepper speaks of it as a sure panacea for apoplexy, palsy, and falling sickness, a belief current in Sweden, where finger rings are made of its wood.  An old-fashioned charm for the bite of an adder was to place a cross formed of hazel-wood on the wound, and the burning of a thorn-bush