pfanil "bore, Tse^cl^/, aael Isijric/', 44c 



had enough of it himselfe." Du Bartas, in his ' Divine Wcckes,' 

 thus refers to this superstition — 



"Horses that, feeding on the grassie hills, 

 Tread up<in Moonwort with their hollow heels, 

 Though lately shod, at night goe barefoot home, 

 Their maisler musing where their shocjcs become. 

 O Moonwort 1 tell us where thou hidst the smith. 

 Hammer and pincers, thou unshodd'st them with. 

 Alas ! what lock or iron engine is't 

 That can thy subtill secret strength resist, 

 Sith the l)est farrier cannot set a shoe 

 So sure, but thou (so shortly) canst undo ? " 



Culpeper tell us that the Moonwort was a herb which, in his clays, 

 was popularly believed to open locks and unshoe horses that trod 

 on it. " This," he adds, " some laugh to scorn, and those no small 

 fools neither, but country people that I know call it Unshoe-lhe- 

 Horse. Besides, I have heard commanders say that on White 

 Down, in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there were found thirty horse- 

 shoes, pulled off from the Earl of Essex's horses, being there drawn 

 up in a body, many of them being newly shod, and no reason 

 known, which caused much admiration ; and the herb described 



usually grows upon the heaths." In Virginia, the Botrychium 



Lnnaria is called the Rattle-snake Fern, because that reptile shelters 

 itself beneath its fronds. 



MOSS. — The Sifjar haddr, or Hair Moss (Polytvichnm commune), 

 which supplies the Lapp with bedding, is dedicated to Sif, the wife of 



Thor. The Superciliiim Venevis is Freyja's hair. The good fairies 



called by the Germans Moosweibchen are represented as being entirely 

 covered with Moss. They live in the hollows of forest trees, or on 

 the soft Moss itself. These beneficent fairies of the forest spin 

 soft Moss of various kinds, which they weave into beautiful fabrics, 

 and, according to their custom, occasionally make handsome pre- 

 sents to their proteges. There is a legend that Oswald, King of 



Northimibria, erected a certain cross, which, after his decease, 

 acquired miraculous properties. One day, a man who was walking 

 across the ice towards this venerated cross, suddenly fell and broke 

 his arm ; a friend who was accompanying him, in dire distress at 

 the mishap, hurried to the cross, and plucked from it some Moss, 

 which was growing on the surface. Then, hastening back to his 

 friend, he placed the Moss in his breast, when the pain miraculously 

 ceased, and the broken arm became set, and was soon restored to use. 



The Bryum Moss, which grows all over the walls of Jerusalem, 



is supposed to be the plant referred to by Solomon as " the Hyssop 



that groweth out of the wall." According to tradition, headache 



is to be removed by means of snuff made from the Moss which 

 grows on a human skull in a churchyard ; and Gerarde says that 

 this Moss is " a singular remedie against the falling evill and the 

 chin-cough in children, if it be powdered, and then given in sweet 

 wine for certain daies together." Robert Turner tells us of this 



