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— 
VII.] THE FOLK-LORE OF PLANTS. 119 
reputation of undoing any lock, bolt, or bar to which 
it might be applied. Withers (1622), author of the 
well-known “ Emblems,” thus refers to it in verse :— 
‘* There is an herbe, some say, whose virtue’s such 
It in the pasture only with a touch 
Unshoes the new-shod steed.” 
Culpepper says: “‘ Moonwort is an herb which (they 
say) will open locks and unshoe such horses as tread 
upon it. This some laugh to scorn, and those no 
small fools neither; but country people that I know 
call it Unshoe the Horse. Besides, I have heard 
commanders say that on White Down in Devonshire, 
near Tiverton, there were found thirty Horseshoes, 
pulled off from the feet of the Earl of Essex’s horses, 
being there drawn up in a body, many of them being 
but newly shod, and no reason known, which caused 
much admiration, and the herb described usually 
grows upon heaths.” 
A subsequent writer—Coles—thus refers to the 
above :— 
“Tt is said, yea, and believed by many, that Moon- 
wort will open the locks wherewith dwelling-houses 
are made fast if it be put into the keyhole; as, also, 
that it will loosen the locks, fetters, and shoes from 
those horses’ feet that go upon the place where it 
groweth; and of this opinion was Master Culpepper, 
who, though he railed against superstition in others, 
yet had enough of it himself, as may appear from his 
story of the Earl of Essex his horses, which being 
drawn up in a body, many of them lost their shoes 
upon Whitedown, in Devonshire, because Moonwort 
grows upon the heath.” 
