1 82 Fiuigus Folk-Lore. [Sess. 



is the Puffballs — a name wliieli needs no explanation. Puck 

 or Pouk fist, by which it was anciently called, and is still 

 commonly known by in some districts of England, is not so 

 self-evident. In Gloucester it is called Puckfoust; in Norfolk, 

 Bulfer and Bulfist — a corruption, perhaps, of the German 

 Bofist. The Irish name is Cos-a-phouka or Pouka's foot ; the 

 Saxon is Pulker-fist. The name Puckfist may be derived from 

 Puck — Eobin Goodfellow, the celebrated fairy — and fist, a 

 corruption of foot. In Icelandic, however. Puck or Puke 

 means a wee devil ; in Swedo-Gothic, the ancient language of 

 Sweden, it also means a devil ; and in old English the devil is 

 called the pouke. Hence may have arisen the popular family 

 nickname of the Devil's snuff-boxes, given to puffballs. 

 Gerarde informs us that it was a common belief that the 

 snuff from the Devil's box was injurious to the eyes ; and 

 Parkinson affirms that if the seeds are brought near the 

 eyes, they will cause blindness — a belief which has origi- 

 nated the names Blindman's ball, Blindman's bellows, and 

 Blind man's een. 



Another group in this division has attracted popular notice 

 by its fetid odours. It is most likely to one of its members, 

 called the Common Stinkhorn, that the Poet Laureate refers 

 in the line — 



" As one that smells a foul-fleslieil Agaric in the holt." 



In Yorkshire it is called the Devil's stinkpot ; in Cumberland, 

 Powcat or Polecat ; in Norfolk it is called Devil's horn ; and 

 in other places. Wood witch and Stinking polecat. A Con- 

 tinental species, by its insupportable odour, has occasioned the 

 superstition among the peasants of the Landes that it produces 

 cancer. It gets the name of Cancer on that account, and they 

 cover it carefully over lest some one should chance to touch it 

 and become infected with that terrible disease. In the west 

 of England the name Canker is applied to poisonous fungi ; 

 and in China and the Cape of Good Hope, species allied to 

 the French Cancer are employed as external applications for 

 cancerous sores. A member of this group, bearing some 

 resemblance to the last-mentioned plant, is a native of New 

 Zealand, where at one time it was economically of some im- 



