32 ROMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



treasure it is only necessary to throw the flower in 

 the air ; if it turns Hke a star above the sun, so that 

 it falls perpendicularly in the same spot, it is a sure 

 indication that treasure is concealed there." Certainly 

 it is needless to add that, as ferns are flowerless 

 plants, the flower of the fern is in itself a myth. 



Folkard states that '* the people of Westphalia are 

 wont to relate how one of their countrymen chanced 

 one midsummer night to be looking for a foal he had 

 lost, and passing through a meadow, just as the fern 

 seed was ripening, some of it fell in his shoes. In 

 the morning, he went home, walked into the sitting- 

 room, and sat down, but thought it strange that 

 neither his wife, nor indeed any of the family, took 

 the slightest notice of him. * I have not found the 

 foal,' said he. Everybody in the room started, and 

 gazed around, with scared looks, for they had heard 

 a man's voice but saw no one. Thinking that he was 

 joking, and had hid himself, his wife called him by 

 his name. Thereupon he stood up, planted himself 

 in the middle of the floor, and said, 'Why do you 

 call me ? Here I am, right before you.' Then they 

 were more frightened than ever, for they had heard 

 him stand up and walk, and still they could not see 

 him. The man now became aware that he was 

 invisible, and a thought struck him, that possibly he 

 might have got fern seed in his shoes, for he felt as if 

 there was sand in them. So he took them ofl", and 

 shook out the fern seed, and as he did so he became 

 visible to everybody." 



The English tradition is that the fern blooms and 

 seeds only at twelve o'clock, on St. John's Eve, just 



