HAZEL 27 



glade, far from the busy haunts of men, see this stately 

 procession and the nutshell coach rumbling along in its 

 midst, while the hare-bells rang a joyous peal of welcome! 



The hazel is in botanic nomenclature the Corylus 

 Avellana. The first of these names is centuries old, and 

 it is surmised that the ancient Greeks gave this title to 

 the plant from their word for a cap, the fruit in its husk 

 suggesting this idea of covering to them. Pliny tells us 

 that the best nuts came from Avella, a town of Campania, 

 hence the specific name Avellana. The French call the 

 nuts avelines, the Spanish avellanas^ and the Portuguese 

 avellaas ; while our popular name, hazel-nut, is pure 

 Anglo-Saxon. In Germany it is the haselnusse, in Denmark 

 hasselnod, in Holland the hazelnoot. 



The power of divination, that was held to exist in the 

 stems, was extended to the fruit also. Thus an old writer 

 aflirms that " being broken assunder they doe foreshow 

 the sequell of the yeare, as the expert Kentish husband- 

 men have observed by the living things found in them ; 

 as, if they finde an ant they foretell plenty of graine to 

 ensue ; if a white worme like a gentill or magot, 

 then they prognosticate murren of beasts and cattell ; if 

 a spider, then we shall have a pestilence or some such- 

 like sicknesse to follow amongst men. These things the 

 learned also have noticed and observed, for Matthiolus, 

 writing upon Dioscoridcs, saith that " before they have an 

 hole in them they containe in them either a flie, a spider, 

 or a worme : if a flie, then warre ensueth ; if a creeping 

 worme, then scarcitie of victuals ; if a running spider, 

 then followeth great sicknesse and mortaiitie." With what 

 awe would the simple woodcutter regard so dire a presage 



