FERN TRIBE 145 
acid and tannin, which are absent from most of the bitter plants that have 
been applied to this purpose, and which have failed from being unable to 
precipitate the glutinous mucilage which renders beer made without hops so 
liable to turn sour. 
This plant was, in all probability, the especial fearn of our Saxon 
ancestors ; for although in the sixteenth century several of the commoner 
ferns were well known and described, yet this is by far the most frequent 
and most conspicuous plant of the tribe in all parts of this kingdom. To its 
abundance in several places, doubtless, we owe the old names of various 
towns and villages, as Fearnham or Farnham, Farnhurst, Farnborough, 
Farnworth, and Farningham. To this fern, too, probably the old proverbs 
and poems refer. Several of the latter were collected from the secluded 
villages of our country by John Ray, but the rustic wisdom which they may 
be supposed to contain is not always apparent to modern readers. There 
was a homely proverb once in common use :— 
‘* When the fern is as high as a spoon, 
You may sleep an hour at noon ; 
When the fern is as high as a ladle, 
You may sleep as long as you're able ; 
When the fern begins to look red, 
Then milk is good with brown bread.” 
The name of Brake, as well as the Scottish one of Bracken, is a very 
old one for this fern. In the old Anglo-Latin dictionary, published by the 
Camden Society, we find “ Brakane or Brakanbuske” described as “ferne 
or brakans.” The Editor, Mr. Albert Way, observes that Ray gives the 
word “brakes” as generally used in his day; and he adds, that it is 
generally retained in Norfolk and Suffolk. It is probably pretty general in 
most counties of the kingdom ; it is certainly the common name of the plant 
in Kent, and the fern is also usually called Brake in North America. 
Mr. Way observes in a note: “In the Household Book of the Earl of 
Northumberland, 1511, it appears that water of Braks was stilled yearly 
for domestic purposes.” In other old writers we find it called “ forne.” 
Thus, in the “Diary of Henry Machyn, Merchant Taylor of London,” 
written in 1552, we read of a man who was placed in the “pelere” for 
“selling potts of straberries, the whych the pott was not alff fulle, but fylled 
with forne.” 
The portion of the stem of the Brake just below the surface of the earth 
is often dug up by country children, and cut across, in order that they may 
see a figure represented by the bundles of tubes and fibres which lie among 
its cellular mass. Dark brown or black markings may be observed among 
the whitish substance. In some counties, as in parts of Kent, these marks 
are fancied to represent the letters JC—a fancy which originated, doubtless, 
in those superstitious times, when, little as men knew of the open page of 
Nature, they knew less still of the written page of God’s Word, and when 
they imagined that Nature pointed to truths taught only by revelation. In 
other places the markings are supposed to show the figure of an oak, and to 
have first grown there in memory of the tree which gave shelter to King 
Charles during his flight. An old tradition is yet told that James, the 
Iv.—19 
