so ROxMANCE OF LOW LIFE AMONGST PLANTS. 



imagined that this plant produced seed which was 

 invisible. Hence, from an extraordinary mode of 

 reasoning, founded on the fantastic doctrine of signa- 

 tures, they concluded that they who possessed the 

 secret of wearing this seed about them would become 

 invisible.-^ 



This belief is alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher, 

 in Fazr Maid of the Inn. 



"Why, did you think that you had Gyges' ring. 

 Or the herb that gives invisibility ? " 



And Shakespeare, in Henry IV., part i., act ii,, 

 scene i. — 



" Gadshill. We have the receipt of fern seed, we walk invisible. 

 " Chamberlain. Nay, by my faith ; I think rather you are more 

 beholding to the night than to fern seed, for your walking invisible." 



To catch the wonder-working seed, twelve pewter 

 plates must be taken to the spot where the fern 

 grows ; the seed, it is affirmed, will pass through 

 eleven of the plates, and rest upon the twelfth. This 

 is one account ; another says that midsummer night 

 is the most propitious time to procure the mystic 

 fern seed, but that the seeker must go barefooted, 

 and in his shirt, and be in a religious state of mind. 



De Gubernatis gives more explicit instructions as 

 obtained from a Russian peasant. " On midsummer 

 night, before twelve o'clock, with a white napkin, a 

 cross, a Testament, a glass of water, and a watch, 

 one seeks in the forest the spot where the fern grows ; 

 one traces with the cross a large circle ; one spreads 

 the napkin, placing the cross on the Testament, and 



* Brand's "Popular Antiquities," vol. i. p. 315. (1849.) 



