Beans

Skinner comments on the bean’s “ancient disrepute”:

If one reads the records truly, it begat insanity; it caused nightmare; to dream of it meant trouble; even ghosts fled shuddering from the smell of beans. The goddess Ceres, in doing good to men, set apart the bean as unworthy to be included in her gifts. The oracles would not eat it lest their vision be clouded. Hippocrates was that kind of physician who taught avoidance of it, lest it injure sight. Cicero would have none of it, because it corrupted the blood and inflamed the passions. The Roman priests would not even name it, as a thing unholy.

Scattering the flowers is thought to placate demons in many countries particularly in the Far East, being associated with death and the spirits of the dead. If one bean in a row should come up white instead of green, an English tradition associates this occurrence with death, and in the south west it was once believed that the third of May was the best time to plant kidney beans to ensure a successful crop.

Broad beans were thought to possess the soul of the dead, and when in flower it was believed that accidents were more likely to happen. If it was a leap year it was thought that the bean would grow upside-down. The shape of the bean was thought to be associated with death and ghosts. Scattering some around the outside of the house would stave off such attentions for 12 months.

Broad beans have also been associated with forecasting the future. A European belief was that three beans should be prepared in different ways to produce an outcome and then hidden on Midsummer Eve for the inquirer to find. The untouched bean indicated wealth, the half-peeled bean indicated a comfortable life, whilst the third fully peeled bean indicated poverty. The future was revealed by which bean was found first.

There is a legend concerning the philosopher/mathematician Pythagoras and a bean field. He believed that some souls, when leaving their bodies, became beans, so he refused to eat them. When there were enemies pursuing him, believing that he was a magician who needed to be put to death, he ran until he came to a bean field. Since he thought that the vines had souls hanging upon them which he did not want to trample, he instead stood still and allowed himself to be killed.