Tobacco's place is secure in folk culture as well. The tale of Sir Walter Raleigh's servant dousing him with beer, thinking Raleigh was on fire when he was only enjoying an after-dinner smoke (fig. 1), or the legend of cigar smoker Rodrigo de Jerez, a crew member with Columbus who was later arrested as a devil worshipper in his native Spain (the evidence: the smoke coming out of his mouth and nose), are still well known in oral tradition as are superstitions about three on a match, references to cigarettes as "coffin nails," and the traditional ways to use tobacco as an herbal medicine.

Tobacco's popularity and reputation are such that, perhaps more than any other plant, it is as well known among its non-users as it is among its users. It may well be that, except for the automobile, no other single item has become ingrained into the social and economic fabric of western culture as rapidly or as completely as tobacco; in the space of only five hundred years, we have come to represent ourselves, characterize others, and to some extent structure and interpret our society according to tobacco and its uses.